Charm
by planet p
Summary: AU; Emily is kidnapped and involved in a ploy to capture her brother, but recapturing Jarod may be the least of anyone's worries. Emily/Lyle


"Why does he keep doing that?" Parker bit, starting to become _very_ annoyed with Lyle's compulsive behaviour.

"You know what he's like," Broots replied, seeming to see nothing wrong with it.

"No, I don't know what's he's like. I try my utmost _not_ to know what he's like!" Parker groused, wondering if he'd gotten into a pub brawl bailing his protege Porter out of trouble again. Porter and trouble seemed like an all too regular occurrence these days, and the boy had said he'd be packing up and leaving town in a couple of months, headed for another state. A couple of months, in Parker's opinion, that couldn't come soon enough. Then again, with Porter and his troublesome ways gone, Lyle would probably go back to his own troublesome, homicidal ways, which she _wasn__'__t_ looking forward to.

They'd been on this damn jet for half an hour and Lyle was already getting cagey. And this coming from someone who'd professed that one of his 'alters' had once aspired to being nothing more shady than a pilot, and an airline pilot, no less. It was enough to set her teeth on edge.

If he didn't stop rubbing his shoulder soon, she was going to go over there and knock him out. That'd probably put him out of action for a while, at least.

"It's driving me crazy!" she growled. "What, am I supposed to feel sorry for him or something?" She gave a disgusted bark of a laugh. Not in a million bloody years would she feel sorry for that loser!

Broots frowned, confused for a moment, then something in his eyes seemed to shift and it suddenly looked as though he'd twigged onto her line of thought, thank heavens. She wouldn't have wanted to yell at him, too. "His wife gave it to him."

Parker had the distinct feeling this was one story she really didn't want to hear, but, for all the good it did her, she knew she'd just have to hear it anyway, then feel sorry for herself afterwards. "Gave _what_ to him, Broots?"

"I know, I know! She's dead. I... I mean, not his wife, the other one. The one from IRIS."

"The gift."

"Yeah, yeah. Silvie's mom. Not that she's, you know, not that she's not dead, too, but..."

"What did she give him?"

"Don't tell me you haven't heard this one before, Miss P?"

"I'm completely in the dark. Throw me a light, will you?"

"So Debbie never told you?"

"God, no! Thank God, _no_! I know you like to think Silvie's such a big corrupting influence on her-"

"Well, I'm starting to change my tune. I think... I think I was a little hasty in jumping to conclusions about her in the past."

"She's _Lyle_'s daughter, Broots!"

"Yeah, but she's my fiancee. My girl, you know. And I kinda like... I like her. And I like us."

Parker rolled her eyes. "Isn't she a Class Five Empath, just quietly?"

Broots frowned, concern darkening his eyes, for a moment. "No, not just quietly. You don't know nothing, okay, Parker? Jeez, she's your niece, lady!"

"Supposed niece," Parker corrected, then shrugged. "You're right, though, she's not all that bad. Not nearly as bad as her father. That one's just plain loopy."

"Loopy with teeth."

"I know," Parker replied disgustedly. "It's shite. So hit me with this thing already! What did...?" She huffed. "I forgot her name."

"Lin."

"Aw, yeah. What did Lin give him?"

Broots pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead, dreading the conversation already. "Do I really have to say? I know I'm... I'm not as prudish as I used to be, back in the day, but it kinda gives me creepy-crawlies just thinking about it."

"Yeah? Wow. How come? Is it that bad? You, with the creepy-crawlies, and Lyle and his little IRIS doll. Who exactly are you feeling bad for, Broots? Lyle, or his toy girl?"

"Me. Only me, hon."

She snorted. "Oh, I see. Dish!"

Broots looked about to say something, then he clammed up, pulling a face. "No! You don't wanna know that about your twin!"

"Oh, for goodness sakes!" Parker huffed. "How bad can it be? I already know all there is to know, trust me, and that's some bad shit! It literally cannot get worse! Worse than making off with my _Convergence __partner_, who just so happens to be _another __man_! I highly doubt it, somehow. Evil, evil Sam stealer creep!"

"And then Jane came along and stole Sam out from under him," Broots reminded her. "That's poetic justice, don't you think?"

She made a face. "Nah, he wasn't so into Sam anymore, anyway. Everyone knows they weren't together anymore, then Sam got all, 'Ew, Parker, you made me, like, like a dude! I can never trust you again. Either of you!' Ugh! Talk about issues. Now he's off with Jane, wonderful Jane. Jane of the Tower Healers sect. Argh! I can't think who's worse: Lyle, or that Jane."

"If I weren't with Silvie, I'd have Jane, any day," Broots told her.

"Traitor!" she muttered.

"She's hot stuff, Parker. Not to mention, a _Healer_." He winked. "We could play wicked good Doctors and Nurses together."

"Oh, gross! I think that image is gonna be permanently seared onto my brain for a couple of decades, at least. Thanks, for that," she managed to get out, sounding visibly in pain.

Broots just sighed. "Go ask Lyle, okay, because I really don't feel up to saying. Or ask Catherine."

Parker's eyes widened. "Shit no! Sh-hi-it no! Maybe I will," she got to her feet, "go ask loserpath." A grin came onto her face suddenly. "I like pressing the weirdo's buttons."

"Easy, Parker. Remember, he likes you pressing them, too."

She shivered in disgust. "I know," she muttered darkly. "And you're mean, mean, mean for not telling me, but now I've gotta know."

He rolled his eyes, waving a hand in Lyle's direction. "Ask away."

She snorted and walked away.

.

"Shoulder hurt?"

"Mm-mmm."

Scowling, Parker sat down next to Lyle. "Don't 'mm-mmm' me! Do I look like Sydney to you?" Besides the fact that she clearly wasn't, Sydney wasn't around. He was away for a conference he was speaking at, and, the last time she'd spoken to him, he'd been very excited about. It annoyed her, but she kinda liked seeing Sydney excited about something. It beat the Hell out of her life, at the moment. The only thing she had to be excited about was pissing her so-called twin off, which wasn't really anything to get all that excited over. The company would never let her turf him out of the jet, so it wholly sucked.

"Then quit playing with it! Broots said your lady from Canada gave you something. So, 'fess up, what she give you? I need to know in case Jarod rings me and quizzes me on it. How shameful would it be if he knew you better than I do, your own _twin_!"

"Very," Lyle replied dully.

"You sound enthused."

"So enthused."

"Why are you so enthused?"

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Why do you keep touching yourself?"

"Why am _I_ even talking to you?"

"Why do you say that?" she asked, grinning at his sudden grumpy tone. Oh, so he could press her buttons to no end, but when she thought to push back, that pissed him off. Well, tough!

"I'm sure Jarod has better things to do with his time than talk about me, some random, homicidal lunatic. You think?"

"You forgot 'sociopath'," Parker supplied.

"Yeah, well who says they're even calling it that anymore?"

"I dunno. I think it suits you," Parker replied, as though she'd actually given it some serious consideration.

"Just go away. I'm busy."

"Busy?"

"Yes, busy."

"Busy with what? Plotting who you're going to shamelessly murder next?"

"Yes, okay. So go away."

"Like you'd ever admit that," she snorted. "What are you really busy plotting."

"Just go away before I have the urge to shoot myself in front of you. You can take it from me, it's not pretty."

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked.

"I'm sick of this."

"Of what? Looking for Jarod?"

"Of everything. I hate being alive."

She made a face. "Jeez, just because I won't get together with you. God, you're a real fucking loser! Come on, your shoulder can't hurt that bad, and I'm still not getting together with you."

"I told you, it doesn't hurt. And that's just crap, and I'm sick of that, too. I'm starting to think Elsie had the right idea all along. Should have listened to her, idiot me."

"Elsie was fucked-up and merrily, with great ease, let her just-as-fucking-fucked-up husband fuck her son up, too."

"It wasn't with great ease," Lyle scowled. "She wasn't pleased with the way her life had turned out, but, at the time, Lyle meant more to her than me."

"That is so fucking sad," Parker told him.

"You think I don't know that. She honestly tried. She did that once, but... it didn't work out. She couldn't go through that again. I told you, she didn't want to lose him. She was really in love with him. It was sad. It's still sad. And I'm still a big fucking idiot."

"Are you insulting Bobby? Come on, that's just not nice. Kid was young. How was he to know any different?"

"He knew," Lyle replied darkly. "He just had his... problems. The idiot loved them too." He looked morose, and slightly disgusted.

She nudged him with her shoulder. "Speaking of idiots, I can hardly talk. It must be like, a twin thing or something, because I was fairly idiotic myself, back in the day."

"No you weren't. You didn't know any different. You weren't a Class Five Empath."

She rolled her eyes. "Bobby wasn't trained, nim-nim. So he might as well have been a Class Five reject/fuck-up for all the good it did him."

"That's what you think," Lyle muttered.

"What is what I think?" she quipped, not missing a beat.

"He wasn't helpless."

"No, he just loved his parents. Like kids are _supposed_ to be able to love their parents! Lay off the kid for a while, will you? He was a sad sack of shit, so what? Does that mean you get an open licence to go him? Fuck no! Not with me around, anyway. He was probably a fairly nice kid, in the beginning."

Lyle laughed. "Trust me, that's a load of bullshit. He wasn't a nice kid. He was a fucking killer!"

"All kids step on ants," Parker replied. "At least, the ones everybody calls 'normal'. Shit, some of them even do worse. But do you see them going around labelling themselves 'killers'? I don't think so. Have you even taken notice to see what they put in video games these days? The kind of violent, bloodthirsty shit they're filling our kids heads with? And then they go and put it in their heads that that's okay. Don't be so hard on Bobby, okay. He was fucked-up, you're absolutely right, but at least he was only '70s fucked-up, not today fucked-up."

"You don't know anything about us!" Lyle whispered coldly, staring at the floor as though it had done something that warranted his hate, something really, really unforgivable, something beyond wrong, beyond bad.

"Maybe now would be a nice time for you to fill me in on a few of the blanks then, hey? Is that an idea, or what?"

"I don't think so."

She sighed. "Why not, other half?"

"I'm not your other half. You never needed another half. You always did shine brightest alone."

"BS."

"I just get in your way."

"I think I work pretty well in a team, when I'm in the mood."

"Not with me."

"Obviously, not with you. But with other people. But that doesn't mean..."

"I don't care what you want. I'm past caring. I don't want anything. Not anything!"

"Stop talking like that," she whispered harshly. "You're damn lucky Sydney isn't here. He'd have a few words to say about your antics, I kid you not."

"And I couldn't care less what Sydney would have to say, either."

"Shut up, okay. Shut up with that crappy talk. I don't like you saying things like that. You have obligations here. Reagan, and Silvie. And I don't care how much you don't care – get fucking caring. You're the one who helped make them."

He laughed quietly, smiling to himself. "Like Sydney helped make... Forget it. I'm an idiot." He shook his head.

"You're not an idiot," Parker told him, annoyed. "You're a very intelligent person. And you're a very capable person. You make yourself out to be an idiot. Listen!" She pointed a finger at him suddenly. "Listen up, pal! You are not going to end up like Kyle. You're my brother, and I won't let you. I don't care if you couldn't care less. I just don't care. I'm saying pick yourself up _off __the __floor_ and fucking pull yourself together! Daddy went tuh-tah! You're not doing the same thing, as well! I need some fucking family around me with half a fucking brain, okay, and at the moment, that happens to be you, moron! Now stop talking shit before I have to get violent and hurt you!"

He didn't say anything so she caught his eye. "What, you're not even going to say, 'Bring it on!'?" He didn't reply to that, either, so she pulled a face. "How am I supposed to help you here when you're not talking to me? I'm not an Empath; I can't just pluck something out of the ether and wham-O, it surprisingly, magically just happens to be spot-on!"

"I don't want anyone to help me," he muttered quietly.

"Well guess what, pally, you don't get to say 'boo' for what Bobby wants. Hand me over to the little freak and we'll see what all he thinks of your clever little plan, huh! Just gimme the freak!"

"No."

"Yes, idiot! I wanna talk to Bobby!"

Lyle stared blankly at the chairs in front of them, saying nothing.

She crossed her arms. "Why can't I talk to him, huh? He's my brother, too."

Lyle looked away suddenly, away from the chairs and away from her.

Parker looked around to see that Broots had walked over and was standing next to her chair, looking worried. "Lyle's pretending he's depressed," she said. "It's shit boring, I gotta say. You wanna take over for a bit, try 'n talk the idiot 'round to some semblance of sense?"

Broots shook his head silently.

"You can't undo it. No matter how hard you try, it never changes anything."

Parker looked back around at Lyle, but he still wasn't looking at her. He was talking to the wall instead.

"You didn't kill those people, Lyle," Broots told him. "That's just the upgrades talking. And you know – you _know_ – Noah can't have meant to hurt them, either. You know his primary protocols prevented him from harming even just one other significant life form, let alone fifty-two. He didn't mean for those people to die."

"Yes he did. He didn't want the negative feedback; he didn't want to die. He was scared, and it wasn't fair. How could it possibly be fair?"

"Lyle, stop it? You're imposing your own rationale onto someone who, simply put, did not think like the rest of us. He wasn't taught to value his own life, merely the contribution he could make to the company that owned and maintained him. He might as well have been a machine. When he projected that negative feedback off him, he was looking out for the company's interests, for their _machine_! He didn't intend to kill those people. He harboured them no malice. The kid was sadly barely even human, Lyle. You know how they treated Jarod, like his feeling something that didn't involve them – and _only_ them – was the world's biggest crime. What do you think they did to Noah? What crazy shit do you think they put into his head with their nutty protocols?"

He sighed. "No, he can't give those fifty-two people back their lives. _You_ can't! No more than Jarod can give all the people back their lives who died or were injured because of something he dreamt up in his Simulations for the company. But Jarod's still sticking it out. He hasn't killed himself, has he? You're just as strong as he is."

"I'm insane. Fucking insane."

Broots shook his head. "That doesn't mean a thing, Lyle. You know it. You know you're insane, so you can change."

"I can't change. I've tried for so long to be... I don't know, who I was supposed to be, before things got fucked-up, and it just... It just never works. I have to-"

"You're upsetting your sister," Broots told him bluntly. "Come on. I know you're stronger than this."

"You don't know me, Ezra."

Broots sighed. "I know enough. And, contrary to what you think, it's not all bad."

"They had families. People who... They had time, lives ahead of them. And I just- I just- ripped all that away from them without a thought!"

"No you didn't. I told you, you're muddling up Noah's things and your things. It's just your meds. You need to go tell Dr. Brown this is happening and have him sort it out."

"What's the difference?" Lyle asked, with a laugh. "What is the fucking difference, Broots? You think I haven't killed people? You know better than that!"

"You can change!" Broots stressed.

"But I don't want to. I don't want to change. I don't want to always have to be looking back and saying to myself, 'You were a fucking psycho, you know! If there was any justice in this world, you'd be fucking dead.' I don't want that. I just want to stop."

"Well that's not the right way to be thinking."

"The right way? The _right_ way! Hhh!"

Broots glanced at Parker. All this talk of suicide wasn't lending her any favours. She looked unusually pale.

"I'm sorry, darling," Lyle said, maybe to Parker. "I shouldn't be talking like this in front of you. I know it's upsetting you."

"I'm not upset," Parker said plainly.

"Fair enough."

"No! No, not _fair __enough_, you lunatic!" she yelled suddenly. "If my real brother's dead, I want some-fucking-one! You're the one the company chose to play the part, so I say, 'Do your fucking job!' I just want _my __brother_! I don't _care_ what you have to live with – I just want MY BROTHER!"

Broots actually stepped back, bumping into the chairs on the other side of the aisle.

Lyle sighed, finally looking around at Parker and meeting her eyes. "Is that the truth?"

She resisted the very real urge to sniff, or lash out with physical violence.

"Okay." Lyle offered her his hand. "If that's the case, I'll see what I can do. Bobby changed once before. If he can do it, so can I. Bobby always wanted a sibling, or, failing on that, one of those Toto dogs. He never really got either. I guess I owe him something for all these years. Give me your hands, I'll see what I can do. I'm not just classed a C5 to look pretty, you know. I've got voodoo skills." He held out his other hand too, waiting for Parker to take his hands, waiting for her to say okay, they could do this thing.

The way he felt now, he really had nothing to lose. Nothing at all.

.

Everything felt strange. Foreign, but at the same time not. At the moment, it felt sharp, with just a tiny edge, a mite edge, really, of dullness, but the dullness would only increase, would only grown more keener, before it eventually relaxed and began to feel normal again. The medication he was on messed things up. Too much, probably. He was still trying to figure things out, important things, things he would have to know. Memories, feelings, those sorts of things.

In time, he supposed, it would come to be okay. This new existence. It would have to be. For Parker, it would have to.

.

Broots didn't look happy. Not in the least. In fact, he was shooting her a very angry look, though most of his anger was held contained beneath the surface.

Lyle was sleeping, but he was going to wake up, eventually. And, eventually, they would have to land and go about seeking out Jarod. If he'd known just what Parker and Lyle had been planning, if he hadn't been quite so slow on the uptake, Broots never would have let them do something like this. He mightn't have known Bobby personally, but he knew how things had changed when he had become Lyle, and Parker had no right going along with something like this, going along with inducing the development of another, new successive personality.

Aside from the fact that this new personality would not, in truth, be Reagan and Silvana's father, or his friend, would not be Lyle; aside from the fact that the company would be spitting chips from here until next December, or even ten years down the track, what Parker had just condoned was an affront to the very idea of someone like Lyle, of an Empath. No Empath would willing choose to screen their Empathy in such a way, would willingly choose to lose a part of themselves to the process of building a new, fresh successive personality! It was just wrong!

He almost felt like crying, or slapping Lyle, though he knew the guy was even more nuts than Parker, and Parker, from what Sydney had said, was probably the dominant in her twin group. Noah, more than likely, had been the secondary and Parker the primary. She mightn't have been an Empath, that was true, but she was more than capable of impressing upon her 'twin' her own will, just the way she'd impressed her Convergence with Sam onto Lyle when she'd refused to accept it herself after the accident that had killed her best friend in boarding school, when she'd pushed any form of love away as a pure fallacy, nothing more than a disgusting, vile, treacherous lie.

If she hadn't been a twin, if Lyle hadn't been a high-Class Empath, she never would have got away with pushing Sam away, the choice would have been taken out of her hands and she'd have lost all control over her Convergence whatsoever. But she had had Lyle, and he'd taken her Convergence for her, had decided, on some subconscious level, that it would be best for him to look after Sam for her until she was ready to have him back. And now Sam hated her, hated them both. He'd left Blue Cove because he couldn't even stomach to be around them anymore, he'd been so disgusted with them; he'd left his father and his two best friends in the world, Lyle and Cox. Sure, he still spoke to Frankie occasionally, over the phone, or emailed him, but he wouldn't even communicate with either of the Parker twins. He hated them like other people hated the Sickness, like T-Corp detested the Centre for their ruthlessness and Blue Cove looked down on the Alabama branch for sending them bonkers Alex and that phoney quack – now Tower doctor – Reston; for taking away their Sweeper Space awards that one year and dissing out their entire Med Space department and for Barb's continual bitching about how they couldn't do a thing right and she and her lot would be ten times – _twenty_ times – better equipped to haul Jarod's ass back in to the Centre, any Goddamn day of the year!

That was how much Sam now hated these two people he'd once wholeheartedly believed he'd loved. It was messed up. All of it. And Parker had to be messed up for not believing when Lyle had always said she had some kind of witchy powers, because, when it came to their 'twin' bond, she did. The simple fact was, she did.

And she'd just proven it today.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Broots just hoped she knew what she'd done. He had no idea how he was going to explain this one to Silvie or Debbie, or even Frankie or Midori, or why he'd just stood by and let it happen, but he knew he'd have to try, eventually. He'd just have to come to that hurdle when he came to it. He certainly didn't relish the thought.

Neither did he like the thought of this new 'alter' meeting Jarod with Jarod's animosity towards Lyle. This new 'person' was an Empath, also, and if Jarod impressed upon it the wrong way, all Parker's efforts could end up being for nothing. It/he needed time to settle, to solidify, away from anyone else's opinions.

With that thought in mind, he crossed his arms, refrained from shaking his head at Parker, and went to find a seat someplace away from the two of them.

.

"I didn't get around to having my question answered," Parker told him, walking over with a bottle of water which she passed to him. "Maybe you could answer it for me now."

"Is there really any point?" he asked, taking the water but setting it down on the empty chair beside him.

Parker planted a hand on her hip. "Well, I'd like to know."

Broots very nearly rolled his eyes, and sighed. "It's a scar. That... that woman bit him, and that's what he got for it. He seems to think – seemed to think – it was special somehow, like it meant she really cared about him and she'd given him this... thing to remember her by, to remind him that he was hers and she was his, that he belonged somewhere in the world. You know, with her. It always struck me as kinda nuts, but Lyle was kinda nuts and it's like he said, his father might have hurt him and his mother might have stood by and let it happen, but he'd cared about his parents so he'd just taken it, like shit happened. Like if that was the only type of love they knew how to give, beggars couldn't be choosers. I _told_ you he was messed up, and you knew it! You knew it from the moment you set eyes on him, Parker, so why- Why this?"

"I deserve to have a brother."

Broots sighed heavily. "This wasn't the right way to go about it, Parker."

She crossed her arms, suddenly angry at _him_. "Would you have rather he topped himself? I fucking wouldn't! You think the company would ever let us hear the Goddamn end of it if we let one of their high-Class Empaths just fucking off himself?" A look of pain came onto her face. Real pain. "I didn't know what else to do!"

She sighed. "He's an idiot and you know how he is. He always does the first thing that pops into his head. I couldn't give him the chance, Broots. I couldn't! He's not just an asset to the company, he's Reagan's father, too! Does that make _sense_ to you?"

"Of course it does," Broots replied in irritation. "I... I have children, too, you might recall." He'd been about to say, 'I cared for Brigitte, also', but Parker didn't know about that, and she didn't need to, either, he supposed. It was in the past now. Brigitte was dead. Nothing was going to change that now.

"You look down on me now, Broots, but I have the chance to make a difference for once in my life, in somebody else's life, and I'm not backing down. Not for anything! Maybe I can't help Jarod, maybe I couldn't help Kyle, or that loony Alex, but I have a chance here. Don't fuck it up for me! You say he's your friend; be a fucking friend and stick _by_ me! I'm his Goddamn _sister_, Broots!"

She glared at him fiercely, for a moment. "I am not my mother. I will not write him off the way she did. And I'm not Raines, or Daddy. I don't just want him for what he can do, for how fucking good he can pull some Empath hijinks, or go someone! I am not the fucking company – I'm a human being and I'm his family!"

"I thought you didn't believe he was your brother," Broots remarked, before he could help himself.

Parker scowled, crossing her arms. "He mightn't be my real twin, but he's got a part of my twin in his fucking brain and, if you hadn't noticed, he took on that role pretty fucking successfully when I threw Sam to the four winds!"

"Catherine did not write him off, Parker."

"Sydney likes to make out she was something wonderfuller than wonderful, and maybe the company does too, in their own fucked-up way, but she was sick. Very sick. And I can tell you this, Broots: she wrote my twin off from Day One. From Day _One_! What's that got to do with the poser, you ask? Apparently she doesn't know he's not my real twin and she hates his guts all the same. She always knew he'd turn out fucked-up, thanks to her wonderful Inner Sense, and she was right, so she thought, fuck, why beat about the bush and moan and groan about my poor baby when it won't do a jot of good, in the end. It's all so much easier just to throw him to the wolves before he even gets started, that way, no-one looks back at me and says, 'Is that monster yours? By goodness, where did that thing come from? You say you're the mother, but that's pretty fucking unbelievable. Either that, or we've all seriously been led astray somewhere along the lines and you really are a wolf in sheep's clothing.'"

"That isn't how Mrs. Parker thought," Broots interjected.

"That's how the sick part of her thought," Parker told him. "I can guarantee you that. My mother used to keep a journal. And I'm talking religiously. You will not believe the messed-up shit that went through her head."

"You've read your mother's diary?" Broots asked, as though he didn't quite believe her.

"No, not all of it. I found pages. I suppose, when it all got too much, she must have written it down on anything close enough at hand, just to get some of it out of her, like leeching the poison out. It's nightmarish."

"Your Inner Sense isn't that bad, is it?" he asked.

Parker snorted. "I'm a double Possessor, Broots. A Pretender and an ISP. It helps. Plus, I've had some training. More than Cat will have had."

Broots didn't make comment on Parker's use of Raines's nickname for her mother, nor on the fact that Catherine hadn't had nine lives. At least part of her nickname rung true, however tragically: curiosity had been what had started it, he supposed, and, in the end, it had killed her as surely as any disease. Curiosity, and trusting in the wrong man. Apparently, Reapers just weren't to be trusted. At any cost. And apparently, they had some crazy charm over everyone who wasn't one of them. At least for a little while.

Raines hardly had the charm anymore, but Lyle must have gotten those women to trust him somehow, and if not by Empathic persuasion, that he'd probably pulled the old Reaper charm. Broots supposed they could work their vibes both ways: to freak people out, if they wanted, or to put you completely at ease with them so when they decided to drain the life out of you in Wraith-like fashion you didn't put up a struggle, you didn't even think to turn and run.

He wondered how Lyle's Reaper abilities would fare, after this. Would they merely disappear, or would they become more unstable than before to the point that he had to watch who he touched or who he interacted with strictly for fear of inadvertently sucking the life out of them or turning Reaper and chowing down on them. The Empath part of him wouldn't be pleased about that, he thought, and neither would Silvie.

Even though he'd left her in that awful place, she still loved him. Whenever he imagined how Bobby must have been before he'd become Lyle, Broots always thought of Silvie. Underneath, she wasn't scary or sinister, she was actually sort of sweet, in her own way. He didn't know what Bobby had been like, but if he'd made friends with Jimmy, the local doctor's son, he can't have been all that bad. From what he'd heard, Jimmy had been smart. Real smart. Graduate high school, next stop law school smart. He'd have known right away if something was up with Bobby and if he intended on stabbing him in the back the first chance he got, and he'd have ditched him faster that he could say 'Toto dog', too, Broots just knew it.

It was a pity Bobby had been messed around by his parents and Raines, because Broots had a feeling Parker probably would have liked him. A big pity.

"We're not in the same league," Parker told him, of her mother. "You just can't compare us. Besides, they say she might have been a Reaper, too, like that other one. Maybe that's why they chose him, even if they didn't know, way back then, that he wasn't a Pretender, or a Pretender/ISP; maybe Angie helped them out there and he knew something the rest of us don't. He's an Empath, after all. They're practically comrades."

"Angelo's ex-T-Corp. I'd hardly call them comrades. T-Corp hate Lyle for offing that Lin woman, his baby doll. I shouldn't be so lurid about it. She was Silvie's mom."

"Why would they hate him for that?" Parker asked, shrugging one shoulder.

"Beats me, but Sydney said they'd really love to sic some of their Reapers on him and have them chow down on him good, if only they'd get away with it without the Triumvirate coming down on them something crazy heavy."

"Nasty!"

"You're telling me. You should ask Sydney about it. He talks to you more than he does to me. I mean, he's more open with you. I dunno, I still think he has issues with trusting me. Maybe it's stupid to say this, but you're a Possessor and so's he, and I'm nothing, just some witchy girl's Convergence partner, and not even that, to the rest of the world, because if they knew who she was, they'd drag her and Jethro off and torture and humiliate them for the rest of their lives. And you know Sydney doesn't even believe in all that. He says he understands that other people do, but I don't think he really gets it that much, even. He probably thinks I'm crazy or possessed or something, to believe in Convergence."

"Sydney only wishes he could believe in it," Parker told him. "Don't kick yourself in the head over it. Michelle and he aren't exactly an ideal couple. I mean, they're not even together anymore. Nicholas _says_ they're friends, but you know how huffy Sydney can get when people want to care about him. Like if it's not Jacob he doesn't wanna know about it. Maybe he's living in blahdy-dah land believing if he just met the right woman he'd magically quit with all the crazy shit, no effort involved, and maybe he _would_, but it hasn't happened yet, has it? Do you have any idea how he must feel, looking at you, a non-Possessor, and knowing that even _you_'ve met the right one, but he's still waiting!"

"I guess you're right," Broots replied. "A part of him must think I'm laughing at him, or I'm just some lucky bastard and what the Hell did I ever do to deserve something like this. A very paranoid, slight unhinged, I resort to C4 when I'm stressed, never mind the Bahamas part."

Parker laughed. "Funny, Broots. Just don't let Syd hear you saying that. He'd probably kill you with his eyes."

"No kidding. The way he was glaring at Lyle the other day, I'm amazed he wasn't complaining about a headache right off the bat."

"Reapers are tough. They can take roughing up a bit," Parker told him. "That's probably why, I'd say so." She sighed, uncrossing her arms. She seemed to be feeling a bit better now, a bit more relaxed. "Anyway," she added, "I've gotta go see how Lyle is."

Broots nodded and silently watched her walk away, back up the aisle to where her brother was sleeping.

In his opinion, he'd always kinda believed that Lyle was her real twin, and that this Noah kid was... someone else's twin, but Sydney seemed pretty convinced, himself, so Broots wasn't quite sure what to think. Even Silvie seemed to think Parker was her real aunt, so he was still kind of thinking about things, not choosing one side of the other. He figured it was probably better that way. After all, there were a lot of pieces of the puzzle that were just missing. Maybe this Noah kid was Catherine's sister Dorothy's kid instead, or something like that. Who knew? Who really knew?

.

My love,

I'm sorry. I'd digress, and say you have no idea how sorry I am, yet I fear you know exactly, understand exactly. Of course you understand; you've always understood these things about me. You see right through me, are perfectly capable of doing so, yet you choose to look inside, instead. You could have pretended I didn't exist, you could have professed yourself to have seen the measure of me and ruffled your nose up in disapproval, yet you did none of these things. Rather, you chose to love me. Thank you. Simply, thank you. I think I will always love you (some way, somehow).

I think you already know what I am about to tell you next. You've always made me better, when we were together. It was bearable, at least. Tolerable. At times, I even enjoyed life. Why not? With you, I could live. I could live in the here and now, rather than so many years ago, always in the past, but lately, I've lost that ability, that will. Even with you near me, I cannot summon it back, and so I have come to the conclusion that I must leave you. I cannot let these things tie you down; I will not let myself inflict these grievances of my past upon us both. They are mine alone and you are guilty of no crime, no involvement in this crime I have committed.

I am so very sorry, my love, but I'm going to have to say goodbye now. Please, do not wait for me. Live in the present, not the past. It has been my biggest undoing, I fear. Take goodness from your memories, not darkness, and go on. I know you will be loved. You will always be loved. You could never be anything but loved.

Farewell,

L.

Parker looked up from the note, remembering how she'd asked Sydney not to let on to Broots why T-Corp hated Lyle so much, not to let on that Silvie's mom had been her best friend in boarding school, a friend she thought she'd killed only to learn, much later, that she'd escaped one cruel fate in favour of another, merely a handful of years down the track, at the hands of her best friend's "twin".

Logically, she understood that there was a high likelihood that Mimi – Lin, as Lyle had known her – had been Lyle's Convergence partner, but Convergence did not equate to love. Sam and she were still Convergence partners, yet they now saw nothing of each other, and even the old adage that if you sweep it under the carpet it doesn't go away, it just lurks unseen wreaking havoc all the same, didn't seem to impress upon them two, as though the damage that had been done had been so severe as to literally sever their bond. And nobody had ever said it was love, they'd much rather favoured words such as "destined" and "intended". Yes, they had romanticised it, but it deserved no such romantic connotations in the case of Lyle and Mimi. There entire relationship had been pre-arranged by the company Mimi had been infiltrating in order for the Canadian branch to get a hold of a Pretender where they were lacking in access to one. Lyle, in error, had not seen beneath their disguise, beneath the mission they'd set "Lin", and had been tricked. As a high-Class Empath, he should have known better, but perhaps his preternatural senses had been messed around by their Convergence, a certainly unexpected occurrence. In fact, if IRIS had known anything of their Convergence, they'd have known a lot sooner that Lyle was no Pretender with a child who turned out to be a Class Five Empath, but if Lyle, himself, had known, he had been keeping the secret carefully guarded, and if Mimi had known, she hadn't let on to her superiors.

Now, Parker couldn't help wondering who this letter was intended for. Surely not the wife he'd killed, Che Ling, and surely not any of the "girlfriends" he'd murder in cold blood merely because they'd been his type, and he'd been hungry.

If she'd had to wager a guess, she'd have said it was written for his Lin; for her Mimi. He'd never thought himself as having a great deal in common with her, and it was true, she'd never seen it either, but the ridiculous things was, Catherine's son or not, he'd had a heck of a whole lot in common with the woman, and she'd seen it always, even before she'd known to look for it. She'd seen it every damn time she cared to look at him, and it had troubled her. Catherine had ended badly, and now this one had, too. Perhaps their ends could not entirely be called "similar", but they were both ends.

Parker only wondered what Lyle had thought about Cat, what he'd known about her, and if they'd somehow managed to trick him into fooling himself into believing that Catherine was – had been – his mother. Because that would have been a really neat tricks, and those were always the ones that got to her, that stuck with her. Perhaps it was just in her nature, as a Pretender, to find these things endlessly fascinating until she'd mastered the art, but she did find it fascinating, and now she would never know the trick, would never get the knack. It was a little of a let down.

No, she'd never been a fan of Empaths particularly – Angelo had seen to that, in his younger years, when he'd still struggled immensely with being both Reaper and Empath – but she'd always still found them fascinating, and even more intriguing, the games they would play. Oh, how she would like to understand this one's games. How very much! But that would not happen now.

She was just glad that someone, at least, did not know that she'd been trained, that she was more than a match for Jarod, even if the people who'd trained her had done so without her father's knowing, without even her _own_ knowing. After all, they had trained Molly, not her, not Melody, and it had only been later that she had successfully been able to integrate the two personalities. The same had not been necessary with Mimi, who'd had a natural aptitude for resisting such devices and means, as a Mediator. They had called her Roslin and she had played along, but she had not been playing cleanly. She'd established a link with the outside world through her communication with her pen pal, Naomi, with plans to escape the horror she'd found herself thrust into. Meanwhile, the Centre – at the least, the Tower – had been aware of the danger Mr. Parker's daughter was in, and had refrained from acting – they'd even shut Alex up with some very clever medications and an even smarter byline, the weirdo from Bama was nuts, purely and simply – and nobody who might have helped had been any the wiser.

In the end, it was Naomi – the group now credited with first developing a serum capable of deactivating the biomech tags they'd received in Sin Eleeswa, both for identification and tracking purposes – who'd come through for Mimi and herself. They'd sent over the serum and Mimi had gotten through to her friend, at long last, explaining the danger they were in, and Melody had come up with the plan to escape via car. Only, the roads hadn't been complicit in their escape. They'd been fooled by a patch of black ice. The car had spun off the road and careened headlong into a conifer forest – or perhaps it had been a plantation – at high speeds. Melody had had to watch her friend die, a branch literally skewering her to her seat, and the impact had taken care of the unborn child she'd been carrying – Sam's baby. To this day, Parker still didn't know if it had been a boy or a girl, and she'd never been game enough to bring it up with any Empaths.

She thought she had lost her best friend, but the company had brought in their very best Healers, even the Daughter of Nash, but they needn't have bothered. Seemingly without reason, the Mysterious Healer had stepped in and taken on their case. Unable to Heal Melody's unborn baby, but otherwise able to restore both girls to their formidable former glory. The company hadn't known about the serum, up until that point. It had passed right under their watchful eye, disguised in a bottle of Chanel No. 5, a fragrance Miss Parker would later take as both her signature and her motivator: Never give up, no matter the struggle, no matter how dirty you have to play. Fight until the death.

Recovering faster than her friend, seven years her senior, Mimi had taken the serum to Melody's bedside and administered it to her, knowing she only had a narrow window in which to operate. Melody's father would soon be arriving to take her home, and the company would quickly clue on to her deception. As the excruciating pain of the serum had taken hold of her, Mimi had whispered to her that she loved her, and that this would all go away very soon, would all seem like little more than a dream, a young woman's lonely flight of fancy. Just a story, and nothing more.

That was what Melody had believed for a good many years, until she'd discovered the truth of her secret "other half", Molly, and had vowed to eliminate the woman once and for all. She had given her own life to rid the world of that menace, the woman who'd once tried to abort her unborn child, and she hadn't looked back once. She knew, implicitly, that she had done the right thing, yet she also understood why Mimi had told her what she had, why she'd tried to keep her from knowing the truth. She'd known how slim her chances of escape were, even with the entire might of the Centre's Blue Cove branch behind her, she'd known how T-Corp could take a person and make them cease to exist, and so she'd fought for the one thing she'd loved unconditionally in this world, she'd fought tooth and nail so that her best friend finally escaped that hell hole.

And she'd ended up being punished for it, severely. She'd been dosed with the serum that would leave her vulnerable and alone, and sent packing for the nearest Centre auxiliary, the experimental eugenics facility, with instructions to infiltrate their training program under the guise of being a Pretender, except they'd made one very crucial oversight. They'd forgotten – whether by accident or very deliberately – that the Centre considered Mediators to be defunct, entirely without purpose of expression, mere Recessives who served little more purpose than to clog up matters, and Mimi, now operating under the alias of Lin, had fallen on her face – hard.

But, somehow, she'd managed to talk IRIS into giving her another chance, and they'd assigned her to their Farm as a carer. She'd been given her own unique tattoo – a gigantic angel tattoo that covered a great deal of her back – and they'd fed her. They'd also turned a blind eye when their employees – especially those who were more "special" than the others, such as Kyle – had taken to abusing her. Parker could entirely imagine what Lin must have thought when she'd been assigned to deceive Lyle. She'd just assumed he would protect her from Kyle, but she had assumed wrong. Yes, in the end, Kyle had left alone with her, but he'd had jolly good fun with her in the meantime. Not even the birth of Saskia had dissuaded him from her case, and he'd gladly terrorised the both of them, believing himself to be in love with Lin, to be her "rightful" owner. After all, he'd set his eyes on her first. Lyle had only won her by default, because he'd been such a good boy and had impressed the company with his work on the EP program. In the end, he'd decided that he didn't much like the chances that the lunatic Lyle might _actually_ shoot him, rather than merely threatening to do so. Pretenders did have the habit of assigning themselves great liberties to their "ethics" where it concerned their loved ones, and as the two did have a child together, Kyle had probably imagined Lyle might just decide he had to take permanent leave of his position at IRIS, and of his life.

It was even possible Kyle had decided to let the woman be merely out of respect for a fellow Pretender, as though conceding he'd lost the deciding round and had therefore lost the game.

For a while, Parker could wholly believe Lyle might have cared for Lin, in some strange way – Pretenders and their pride could be deadly dangerous things to mess with – but all that had been shattered when the company had informed him of his "gift's" deception, and had asked him to take care of it. He had, of course, without question. The company, clearly, had held greater sway over his heart than any living, breathing being alone could ever hope to. In fact, a year later, he'd upped and left his daughter with them, too, as though he'd decided she was little more than scum, coming out of that T-Corp mole and traitor to the company who'd made him, along with her, less than despicable, but a damn fool. If he'd been intended to punish his daughter, he'd gone the right way about it. He'd even left her with Kyle, her mother's great admirer and abuser, without so much as a backward glance. But nothing Kyle could have ever done to her could measure up to what the company had in store for her. Rather, Kyle seemed to have taken a liking to her, deciding that seeing as Lyle didn't want her anymore, and she was the daughter of his soul mate, he'd have her as his daughter instead. She had become, as she'd once told Kyle he had become for her, a part of his heart.

When the company had dosed her up nicely with the anti-Healer serum and sent her off to cripple and retrieve T-Corp Healers, and any others she could lay her hands on too, not caring a single iota if she was injured or killed with no chance of recovery via preternatural means (thanks to the ever family-friendly AH serum), Kyle had even cared enough to take offence, and succeeded in earning himself a transfer back home to the United States, for all his efforts.

With nobody left to protect her, Saskia had finally escaped at the age of fifteen and moved to Blue Cove, where her father was currently working, under the assumed name of Silvana Morgan, which was when, year later, she'd met Broots's daughter, Debbie, the girl who would become her own best friend.

Yes, Parker had known for a good many years that it had been her twin – so-called twin – who'd dispensed of her best friend, in the end, with his own _Empathic_ three-year-old daughter playing in the other room, but she'd held off snuffing him out for Silvie's sake, and for Reagan's sake. If those two kids hadn't been in the picture, she'd have gladly, with unnatural glee, killed him and dumped his body somewhere no-one would ever find it. The company would merely assume he'd gone AWOL and his reputation as a company man would have been ruined forever, and, short of mending all the harm he had caused and all the lives he had taken, Parker would have been satisfied that justice had been served. But she didn't even get that, so she had to settle for what she could have.

She couldn't have her own twin brother, merely this imposter who, thanks to Raines and his insane self and his innumerable methods of persuasion, had been fixated on her – probably since he'd been fifteen – she'd decided she might as well have a piece of the pie that was available to her. David, she hadn't minded so much, but David had merely been another of Lyle's little games for Field, and not an actual 'alter'. This time, it would be different. And maybe this time, this 'alter' would actually make up for the brother she'd lost.

Thinking about this, she folded the letter up the way it had been before she'd found it and decided to take a snoop in on its contents, and stowed it away in a pocket of her jacket. The girl was smoked, well and truly. Finita. If it _had_ been written for Lin, she, with the Inner Sense, was the one most capable of passing Lyle's message on to the girl, not some insane Empath who merely siphoned off "echoes" of other people's pasts, like a parasitic menace to the universe and its secrets. The loony was even getting around believing his dead wife to be alive and well, living amongst those that walked of the earth. Clearly, he was loony.

In the past, she'd always shied away from trying to contact her friend, from her deceiving "gift", a gift that had been such an asset to Molly, but her own mother's slow, excruciating downfall, but she thought she might, possibly, give it a shot one of these days. Not for Lyle – goodness, no – but merely out of curiosity.

It was true that some high-Class Empaths – and some non-Possessors, even – claimed to have contact with the souls of the departed, with those who no longer walked among the living, but Parker wasn't so sure she believed all that, and she certainly didn't believe that Lyle had been able to talk to dead people, let alone see them, much less that Mimi – whom he'd murdered for no more reason than to keep in his beloved company's "good books" – would want anything to do with him for the rest of eternity.

They would have killed us both, my mother and me, Silvie had said once, to Debbie – who'd kindly shared Silvie's little story with her – but Parker didn't care about Silvie's fractured, clearly damaged take on the situation. She had, after all, endeared the lunatic who'd physically abused and raped her mother to her and told him he was a part of her heart. From what Debbie had said, she was still mad at Lyle for shooting him dead, and she often referred to him as "Uncle" Kyle in much the same way she referred to her own father as Lucky, something he certainly was not, if one wasn't counting all those young Asian women he'd murdered with absolutely no repercussions other than garnering Jarod's very strong dislike of him, possibly, okay, in truth, his hatred.

Still, if he'd still been known as a Pretender, Parker wasn't so sure Jarod would ever have taken to hating him, in the first place. His opposition may have remained a strong dislike and utter and complete disapproval of his morals, but certainly not hatred. After all, Jarod hadn't hated Kyle, and he probably hadn't even hated Alex. So, okay, maybe he hated Alex a little, but only so much as was fashionable for one who'd grown up in Blue Cove, who'd been born in Blue Cove, because Alex, basically, had been and had remained, a Goddamn outsider, and a creep to boot. He'd been much to good a Pretender to garner any friends in friendly circles, until the meds and the head games had finally, totally driven him insane, and then he'd decided he'd rather be dead than give Jarod so much as a simple "thank you" for saving his life. Or maybe he'd just been severely disenchanted with his "life" in a way Jarod just didn't get yet.

As a teenager, Parker had actually come close to that kind of disenchantment, to committing suicide. Yes, she'd been put off by the idea that her mother had committed suicide also, well, that was what she'd been told and believed up until that point. As a grown woman, she'd already had enough of Molly in her to swear her off all such means. The part of her that had also been a part of Molly would go down fighting, in battle, and would settle for nothing less. Miss Parker was no quitter. Melody might have been essentially a lover and not a fighter, but Miss Parker was definitely a fighter. It was Melody who so readily bought into all of Mr. Parker's lies, that damn ninny, girly girl. Molly, realising she was pregnant – Melody was pregnant – had even decided to get rid of her own baby as though she could easily write it off as nothing more than a troublesome complication that needed taking care of. Molly and Lyle would probably have got along real well, if they hadn't been at each other's throats, though they'd never had the good luck to meet. A lucky save, in Parker's opinion, too. She did not want to think about those two psychopaths making friends, or making nice.

The single thing Molly had had going for her was that she'd been a good fighter – and even that hadn't been a reason really – and the fact that she'd loved Roslin just as much as Melody had. That was the single reason Parker saw not to hate that other part of herself. Even the smarts and the kick-ass stuff weren't reason enough. The single reason was that, because Molly, in loving her "partner", had allowed Roslin to talk her around, to talk her into surrendering herself to Melody once more in order for them to make their escape, knowing, beyond a doubt, that she'd never let her friend get away if the company just said so much as a whisper, so much as "take care of it", because Molly always played by the rules; Molly always did as her masters commanded.

If Molly hadn't loved Mimi as much as she had, Melody probably would have taken her own gun to her head and blown her brains out rather than assimilate with her.

So, yeah, Parker knew a little about the idea of sacrifice, about giving up everything you had to give and more, and she didn't think it was such a big ask for Lyle, contemplating topping himself anyway, and with no more enticing options open to him, to change, to become something better, more worthy of life.

Not such a big ask at all.

And he should be so lucky.

Maybe Silvie had been onto something with that nickname of hers, or maybe she just hadn't wanted Parker figuring onto the fact that Lyle was her father and that she, Debbie's best friend, talked to him, or that Debbie did, either. Parker thought it more likely to be for the latter means than the former. It was no wonder Broots had been so suspicious of the "witch". He'd had every good reason to, Parker just hadn't been able to see it at the time. She been blinded by the girl's resemblance to her long dead friend and had taken a liking to her and had failed to see the obvious. She was, in her own way, very, very fucked-up.

And now Broots was engaged to her, and they had a son together, and a second child on the way. Parker couldn't help it if _she_ had a distinctly sour taste in her mouth. Broots had been on her side all along, yet she'd been the one to fail him before he'd ever so much as contemplated the _idea_ of failing her. The part of her that was most like Molly could have simply murdered the part of her that was Melody for her sheer idiocy, over that. Parker, however, had to live somehow, and so she conceded to merely feeling like a bit of a loser, and an idiot. In other words, she'd been as dull as Lyle when he'd been tricked by Mimi in the first place.

It almost seemed poetic to Parker. A bit too "twin moment" for her tastes, but poetic nonetheless.

.

When the jet finally set its wheels on solid ground once more, Parker was happily surprised to find that they day had blossomed into a bright, sun-filled sky and warm, softly caressing air, as opposed to Blue Cove, the horror!

Lyle, who'd woken up all of his own accord, wasn't so happily surprised. He was throwing up something or other he'd probably had for breakfast and Parker didn't want to know about. She knew all about throwing up and it wasn't fun. Just thinking about it gave her pain.

"You should probably check out if he's okay," Broots suggested. "I mean, it could be negative feedback from your... earlier agreement," he finished.

"Or it could be terror from flying. Maybe my _brother_ didn't grow up wanting to be a Goddamn airline pilot! Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm right on the money!" she scathed, then felt bad for it. Broots was only trying to help and she was being a bitch about it. Go figure.

She stomped off to go check on Lyle, or whatever his name was. She hadn't yet decided if she was going to ditch the sociopath's name and go with something like Theodore – her _real_ brother's real name – or Robert, _Lyle_'s real name. Trudging through the calf-high grass to where Lyle was now sitting, looking as though he'd ingested a full bottle of vinegar, she decided she'd much rather call him Bobby than Lyle. Bobby, at least, hadn't been a murdering son of a bitch. To the best of her knowledge. She always credited the Jimmy incident to Lyle, the nutter. Whether or not said nutter would agree, she couldn't care less. "Bobby, what's going on?" she asked, crossing her arms. "If you've got some despicable stomach bug, tell it to kindly leave me the Hell alone!"

He pressed a hand to his head, staring blearily at nothing in particular in front of him. "Could you please tell me what time it is?"

Shrugging, Parker glanced at her watch. "Three odd. Afternoon time."

"Thank you," "Bobby" replied.

"Why do you ask?" Parker asked casually.

"I can't see anything and I feel really sick," he returned, a little less casually. "My head hurts."

"What the Hell! What do you mean you can't see anything?"

He waved a hand in front of his face. "Do you see that?"

"Yeah, sure." She rested a hand on her hip.

"I didn't."

"Ow, shit! What's happening, Bobby? Tell me what's wrong? You need some pills, a hospital, what?" She peered at him more closely and saw that his hand had come up in some strange, angry looking welts. Or maybe they were blisters. They looked nasty, whatever they were. She froze. "Your hand hurting, Bobby?"

"My hand's fine. I think... I have a migraine."

"Migraines suck."

"I think I'm getting that." he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. "It's so hot here!"

It was warm, but Parker wouldn't have called it hot. Tentatively stepping closer, she said gently. "Maybe you should take your jacket off."

He put a hand to his chest, as though to check he was wearing a jacket, and said, slightly breathless, "Good idea."

Parker didn't offer to help. She wasn't so keen to touch him with those blisters, and more of them were coming. She actually wanted to take a step back, or a few dozen, but she stayed where she was, reminding herself that this wasn't Lyle, it was her new _brother_!

"Oh, stop it!"

Parker stayed quiet, not knowing what to do. She'd never seen negative feedback anything as severe as this, not even in Sin Eleeswa, not even on all of Molly's missions.

"Parker?"

Bobby sounded kind of scared, and Parker winced.

"Are you still here?"

She nodded, then forced herself to say, "Yeah. I'm still here. So what are we doing? We've got work to be getting on with, remember."

"Do we?" He sounded kind of faint. The blisters had now started showing up on his face.

Parker closed her eyes for a moment, as though that would help, then, feeling like an idiot, opened them again. She felt sick. Suddenly, she got what Bobby meant about the weather. It was shit lousy weather; too bloody hot for comfort.

When she looked again, she saw that Bobby had got up off the ground and was slowly, unsteadily making his way towards her. "Finally!" she muttered, hurrying off ahead. She couldn't stomach the thought that he might catch her up and actually _touch_ her! Shit, Lyle hadn't told her this would happen. He'd made out like everything would be fine – better than fine! – and she, the incurable idiot that she was, had bought his story completely.

Lyle had probably thought it pretty funny. He'd probably even known she'd decide she didn't want to call him by that dumb shit psycho's name anymore and would prefer, even, to call him by killer boy's name. He'd probably thought it was funny, sticking it to Bobby, the idiot country hick.

Somehow, she didn't find it funny at all.

She made a cutting motion across her throat when she got close enough to catch Broots's attention and Broots's eyes widened in horror, but Parker glared at him and he said nothing but headed off in the direction of the car that came driving towards them.

Bobby froze. "What is that?"

"Calm down," Parker replied, stealthily keeping her distance, "it's just a car."

Bobby reached out a hand as though it might be close enough to touch but Parker shook her head and told him, "Come on. They're waiting on us."

She'd make Broots sit down the back with Bobby. No way was she! No bloody way! Broots was a non-Possessor. Probably, in all likelihood, he'd be perfectly fine.

"Do you-? Do you want to take this?" Bobby asked, stopping again and wincing.

Parker turned around, starting to get really annoyed, and made a face when he held his gun out to her. Gingerly, lifting up her jacket sleeve, she took it off him, then hurriedly stepped back, away from him.

"Are you okay?" Bobby asked.

"I'm fine," she snapped, "just pick up your feet!"

"Would help if I could see where I was going," he muttered, but didn't elaborate.

She scowled silently. Right about now, she was envisioning murdering that freak Lyle. Painfully! Very painfully!

"Bobby, stop! That's the car." She was starting to regret choosing that name for him now. The more she said it, the more it really did sound like a name for an idiot country hick.

"Go around the other side," she groused, when he put a hand out to touch the side of the car, "Broots is sitting there. The other side, for heck sake, Bobby!"

She stomped off around the side of the car and marched to the front, yanking open the car door and getting inside. She slammed the door after her and glared at her side mirror, saying nothing to the driver.

When Bobby finally found his way around to the correct side of the car, Parker glared at the driver and growled, "Go. _Go._ Drive!"

Broots frowned at her and decided he'd best help Bobby figure out how to make the seat belt co-operate.

"Thank you," Bobby told him, and Broots sighed, noticing that Bobby's accent was nothing near like Lyle's, and he didn't sound half as know-it-all. He sounded like a regular person as opposed to a bit of an uppity git.

"That's alright," Broots returned. "You want the window down or something?"

"No, no. I think I'm starting to feel a bit better."

"Good. That's good."

For a good ten minutes, nobody spoke. Then Bobby asked, feeling the beads on his right wrist, "What- what is this?"

Used to Lyle referring to them in the plural, as "my beads", Broots made something up and just said, "They're for good fortune," not even caring if it was a lie because who was going to say otherwise?, and if Parker had meant to reply, she would have already. It was just his luck, but he had a feeling Parker was in one of her moods. Even so, it struck him as an odd question. The way they looked, they could hardly be anything else. They had to be something voodooesque.

Parker scowled, then snapped, "Bobby's pretending he can't see anything. Ignore him, he's not there. If he can't see us, then we can't see him, either."

Broots didn't ask why she was calling him Bobby – she'd apparently decided Lyle sucked as a real person's name – but he thought it was a bit mean her saying they should just ignore him. He looked like he was really sick and Parker was pissed and just didn't care.

"Wh-why can't you see anything?" he asked Bobby, but not too loudly.

"I have a migraine and it's really _killing_ me, but I don't feel nauseous anymore. That's something to be thankful for, I guess."

"Hmm."

Bobby sighed and closed his eyes. "Broots, do you think it really works?"

"What? Sorry, I wasn't following." Broots ripped his eyes from his side window and glanced at Bobby. "Say again."

"My..." Bobby held up his right hand, "bracelet. Do you think it might really be lucky, or... it might... bring good fortune?"

Broots shrugged, trying not to be annoyed by the "it". "Seems like a load of hocus-pocus to me," he replied, but Bobby didn't even say anything to refute this statement. If he'd been anything like Lyle, he would have laughed or something. He'd surely have been offended if someone called his beads crap, just the same as he never, ever referred to them as some bracelet. They weren't some fancy bling-bling, they were important Empath stuff, that's what they were.

In reality, Broots knew that they'd been Bobby's to begin with, a gift from Lyle or Elsie, he supposed, back when they'd been living in the City, before they'd moved away to Hicksville, NB, otherwise known as Misery, but this Bobby probably wouldn't know that, and he didn't feel so keen, all of a sudden, to jog his memory.

He didn't want Parker killing him.

Going back to watching the window, he suppressed a sigh and hoped "Bobby" got his sight back _before_ they had to go chasing after Jarod down some dingy alleyway.

.

"Stay with the car," Parker groused, obviously not pleased that Bobby still couldn't see shit, and marched off ahead, glaring at the building she was stomping toward, and Broots and the driver, apparently a Sweeper by trade, followed.

Bobby patted the car. "We'll just... stay here," he told it, "okay? Okay. Good." He sighed, looking around uncertainly, wondering the same thing the others probably were. His head didn't hurt anymore so surely his eyesight would return shortly and he'd be able to contribute to the team effort again. Parker was already angry at him for what she saw as his "antics", he didn't want to make it any worse. Yeah, she was his sister, but they didn't always get along. Mostly, that was his fault, but he had decided he was going to start pulling himself together and make a concerted effort _not_ to aggravate her so much.

He heard someone's footsteps on the pavement and frowned in their approximate direction, asking loudly, "Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to have the time, would you?"

Whoever it was froze and didn't say anything.

He frowned. "Um, yeah..." If it was Jarod, he was so going to be kicking himself if he got away.

He sighed, dropping his shoulders. Right, it was a woman. He could tell by the perfume. Something by J-Lo, he supposed. "Never mind, Miss," he told the woman, and he heard her hurry away.

"You know," someone said from close beside him, "you're wearing a watch."

He frowned and stepped away quickly. "Actually, I do know," he replied, wondering how the woman had managed to sneak up on him like that and, merrily as you please, lean back against the car next to him all without his noticing.

"Stealthy or what?" she asked, with a smile in her voice. She smelt like lavender, or maybe just her hair did. "You look like shit, by the way. You get stuck on the bad end of an altercation with a giant spacey octopus critter, then?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay!" She put her hands up and shrugged. "Cool car, by the way. Say, mind if I take it for a spin?"

"No."

"Is that your favourite word, or what?" she asked.

"Look, lady, just... bzz! Kindly move along. If you failed to notice, I'm kinda in the middle of something here. Something really sort of important."

"Huh?"

He scowled, starting to think this was some kind of set up Jarod had instigated to distract him and finding it, frankly, very annoying. "Lady – go away!"

"Look, I ain't your lady!" she growled. "And I ain't goin' nowhere. This is a free country."

He shook his head. "Yeah, but this isn't your car."

"Jerk!"

"Uh-huh! That's what I am. Scoot!"

"You scoot!" she scowled, stepping away from the car and crossing her arms over her chest, just standing on the pavement.

He knew she hadn't left, like he'd been hoping, because he could still hear her breathing. She was probably still scowling at him, too. "Jarod really charmed you, huh?"

"Jarod who, loser?"

"You know who," he replied.

"Whatever!" she muttered disinterestedly, and he suddenly realised she wasn't some kid, some cranky teen looking to start some trouble, but a woman in her late thirties or her early forties.

"Who are you?" he asked, suddenly serious. He'd just remembered that Jarod had a sister a couple of years younger than he was. Emily, her name was. "Emily, right?"

"Hhh!" She snorted. "Za popular name. Don't prove a thing, way I see it."

"You're Jarod's sister, aren't you?"

She laughed, suddenly leaping away, her laughter trailing after her as she ran. "Catch me if you can!"

"Ah heck!" He didn't know if he should run after the girl or stay by the car. Doing some fast thinking, he decided the car would keep without him, and took chase after the girl, praying he didn't fall over anything or run into anyone or any oncoming traffic at the road that was coming up.

The girl must have been fast because he couldn't hear her footsteps anymore and the road wasn't that busy. Maybe he'd lost her.

"Oh God!"

He stopped, realising that the woman had stopped running away and that was why he couldn't hear her footsteps anymore. She wasn't going anywhere. She sounded sorta sick.

"Stupid, stupid," she muttered weakly to herself. "Hey, hey. It's okay. Z'okay. Settle down, lil thing. We good."

He crossed his arms. "You got far."

"Shut it, boy boy!" she muttered back. "I can still whoop your butt and make it look stylish."

"I've got plenty of time."

She snorted, then started to cough. "Argh!" She stumbled closer and stopped in front of him. Just as he was trying to figure out what her plan was, she grabbed his hand. "What are pulling a face for?" she mumbled.

He grabbed hold of her wrist with his other hand, making sure he had a good hold on it. She wasn't getting away from him now.

She sighed heavily as though it didn't matter that he'd caught her, and he wondered if she was a bit slow on the uptake. What did she do again? He couldn't quite remember.

"Ow! Honey, you're hurting my wrist. Don't squeeze it so tight, okay. I'm not having a go at you, but I don't feel well. I think it's Aretha, she's not happy."

"Who- who's Aretha?"

Emily laughed, only slightly amused, but when she realised her was serious, she wasn't laughing anymore. She tried pulling her hand away from him but he wasn't letting go. A note of panic came into her voice. "Lyle, I'm not kidding! I don't feel well."

The only person Bobby knew by that name was Lyle Porter, and there was no way Emily could mistake him for Porter. There had to be a full twenty years between them, if not more. He wondered, for a moment, if there was something he was forgetting. Something important. Like the fact that Emily thought he was someone called Lyle who might actually care less if she wasn't feeling well.

Deciding he'd rather be safe than sorry, he relaxed his hold on her wrist. Maybe this was part of his mission, only, he was the only one who knew. Parker didn't know, and not even Broots knew. Like a secret mission, he supposed. He could handle that, couldn't he? He was good at stuff.

"Yeah, sorry," he mumbled. "How come you're not feeling well? You haven't been looking after yourself, or something?"

She laughed weakly. "Of course I've been looking after myself. Shit, as best as I can, you know." She shuffled closer and rested her head against his chest. He was glad she didn't pick up on his momentary wince and listened to her go on, telling him, "You feel weird. Your vibes feel weird. Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"I'm fine. Forget about me. You're the one who's not feeling well."

She put her arms around him and hugged him. "I should probably be going. Jarod's going to be worried, wondering if I really have been abducted by aliens."

"Hey, who cares what your brother thinks! Stay, for a little while. Okay? At least until you feel better."

She smiled, picking up his hand and giving it a bit of a squeeze. "I feel better already."

"Good."

She sighed heavily and he finally noticed how hard her heart was beating. He bet she was lying, she probably wasn't feeling better at all. She was just saying that. Heck, she was probably just making all this up as she went along and there _was_ no secret mission.

Bobby was sure, if there had been, that he'd have remembered at least _something_ by now. But nothing. Nothing came to mind. Not what this woman must look like, or who the Hell this Aretha person she was talking about could be, or even something as simple as thinking her voice sounded familiar.

Everything about her was just anything anyone else could just as easily have had, too. Her lavender soap – or was it shampoo?, not that it really mattered to him – her plain voice, her little pittery-pattery heart, her laughably bad attempts at street kid 'tude. Did she even know how _stupid_ she made herself look! And now she was cosying up to him, thinking he'd fall for her con because he was a guy and she was some probably not half bad looking chick, and all guys were easy – but he wasn't going to buy into that. He wasn't going to let her win that easily!

He got a good hold of her, ostensibly returning her hug, and waited for her to realise she'd messed up.

She wasn't too fast on the uptake, was she?

"I have to go, baby. You know I do. Mel's going to be out here any minute, yelling at anyone standing close enough to cop an earful, and I don't want her yelling at you, too. I _know_ how that woman can yell. Ears, Mel, ears. We've got ears, girl, you know. Look, see." She sighed. "Are you gonna ring me?"

He almost scowled. Mel! Who the Hell was Mel? If she was talking about Miss Parker, she obviously didn't know _anything_, despite what she wanted him to think. "Yeah, of course," he replied, just lying. Ring her? Ha! He wouldn't need to ring her, she wasn't going anywhere!

"Hmm... What are you doing with your hair?" She picked at his hair annoyingly and smiled. "It's got a bit of a curly bit."

He seriously considered smacking her hand away from his head before it dawned on him that that would give her a chance to make a break for it, and decided he wasn't taking any chances.

"Your hair is so adorable! Mel doesn't have curly hair. You know, I don't know where you got it from. The kids don't have curls, either. Who knows, Aretha might, when she's older." She stopped playing with his hair. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I know, that sounds disgustingly cliched, but I'm not messing around. If something's bothering you, I wanna hear about it. I want to be there for you. And I _know_ we talk about all kinds of things, but I just want you to know you're safe with me. I'm not going to run off and tell Jarod or Ethan something you tell me, or my mom. It'll be just between us two."

Ethan, the half brother, right. "I know. I do trust you, Emily, it's just, some stuff I don't even want to think about my-"

"Emily?"

The way she said it, she might as well have caught him calling her by another woman's name. She sounded so disappointed, so sad. He didn't give a damn. He knew that was her name – at least, she hadn't called him out when he'd questioned her earlier – and he really didn't want to have to string off some rigmarole cutesy names that meant practically very little beside the fantastically ugly way they sounded said aloud. "Come on, it's your _name_, baby! What, I can't call you by your name, now?"

She grew suddenly still, attempting to back-step and move away from him.

"Where you going, baby?" he asked, tightening his hold on her.

"Who are you?" Her voice was suddenly cold, devoid of any emotion but sullen anger. "You've been acting weird from the get-go, but I've been ignoring it, telling myself I'm just being silly and you're not feeling well, but this just clinches it. You're not Lyle. Who are you? How are you doing this? I want an answer! What have you done with my husband?" She was suddenly breathing very hard. He could just picture the way she must have been glaring at him. Obviously, she was going for shock value, trying to take him off guard any way she could.

Still, it eluded him as to why she'd keep trying to imagine he was someone he wasn't. It just didn't seem rational. He couldn't understand her thinking on that part, but, other than that, he had to give her some credit. She could sure cosy up to people nice, and she could sure raise her voice a bit.

"If you did something to him-!" She laughed suddenly, as though the idea of someone hurting her "husband" was just silly, ridiculous, or maybe she just didn't want to face the possibility.

Not that her husband was real, Bobby reminded himself.

"Why are you wearing my husband's beads?" she growled suddenly. "You! I am going to-"

From down the street, Parker's loud, snippy voice floated outside into the warm, city air. Any moment now and she'd spot them both. He was already anticipating being rid of this pesky slip of a girl. She was insane and he didn't like her. At all.

"Let go of me!" she said, starting to panic herself now. She struggled but got nowhere. He wasn't letting her go. "Let me go!" she protested. "You're insane! Just let me go! I can't-" She started to gasp weirdly but he wrote it off as just another one of her tactics and ignored her, feeling confident enough to finally start back towards the car and pulling her with him.

"This just figures!" Parker muttered darkly, when she finally caught sight of the pair. "Let go of her, Bobby. Let go!" She was talking to him like he was a little kid and he didn't like it, but at least the girl had shut up.

He relaxed his hold on Emily but decided he'd best hold onto her arm, just in case. He hadn't forgotten that she was something of a fast runner.

"Russell. Hey! Russell, say something!" Parker was trying to get the girl to perk up.

"Ah, I wouldn't if I was you. I think she's kinda... _loopy_!"

"Idiot!" Parker growled.

Fed up, Bobby let go of her arm, not even caring if she ran for it and Parker had to run after her in her stupid, impractical high heels.

"Holy crap!" Broots muttered.

The Sweeper laughed. "She's asthmatic, huh? Who is she, anyway? I've never seen her before? She doesn't look like a Pretender to me. If she is, she's not a very smart one." He laughed again.

Bobby glared at him angrily for a moment, not even sure he was glaring at him or _thin __air_, then turned back to his sister. "She's not asthmatic, Parker. She's having you on. You should have heard the rubbish she was coming out with before, thinking I'd go easy on her and let her get away. Yeah right!" He laughed. Yeah right!

"Emily!"

Someone grabbed his hand and he stepped back quickly, figuring it was probably that girl again. "Argh! Stop her from touching me!"

"Oh shut up!" Parker muttered. "And don't run off. If she wants to touch you, then let her! She's no good to us dead, Bobby, for God sake! Sometimes, I think you can be a real idiot." She grabbed his hand roughly and yanked it closer. "Here, hold his creepy fucking hand!" she muttered to Emily.

He made a face but let Emily hold his hand. As much as it disgusted him, Parker was right. Emily would be no help at all dead.

"Better?" Parker groused, then patted Bobby's shoulder. "See, she likes your creepy effing hand. Be thankful you're useful for something after all."

"Ha-ha!" he scowled dryly, not actually thankful.

"Alright..."

.

They were keeping company in some dingy motel. Bobby didn't have to be able to see it to know it was dingy, he could just tell. For starters, it didn't smell too crash hot, like maybe the people who ran this joint had never heard of airing the place, and for seconds, the bed was really, _really_ crappy. But Parker had said a place like this was better than some big, expensive hotel. Better because if Jarod showed up to claim his sister back, there'd be less people to interfere when the guns came out.

Bobby supposed she had a point, but that didn't mean he had to like this stupid place. Not to mention, why the Hell did he have to get stuck with the retard girl? Just because he couldn't see shit meant they could all treat him like shit – well, that wasn't fair! He was actually regretting giving his gun to Parker right about now.

The girl was handcuffed to the bed, apparently just chilling, and he was supposed to be watching over her, making sure she didn't try anything clever. What a joke! _Watching_ over her!

Still, Parker seemed to think, just because he was an _Empath_ – she said the word like it was something deplorable, something disgusting – just because he was a Goddamn Empath, watching over someone when he couldn't see a single thing should be a veritable walk in the park! And just in case he got lonely and wanted someone to talk to, she'd told Broots he should check in on them every once in a while.

The door opened and Bobby tensed, not quite sure _who_ it was, but pretty sure it wasn't Emily; she was still handcuffed to the bed. He could tell because he could feel her leg. She really was puny, but she had strong legs. It was no wonder she could run so fast.

"It's me... Ah, Broots..." Broots told him, closing the door behind him and walking over cautiously. "Is she okay?"

"Who knows?" Bobby returned. "She's keeping quiet. Finally, she smarts up. God!" He shook his head. "What, couldn't you even bring me a coffee or something."

"I... Right. So you drink coffee, yeah. Sure, sure. I'll just make it qu-"

"Hang on. I have a question first."

"Ah, okay. Shoot."

"What's that one look like?"

"Sorry, who?"

"Who do you think? God! The woman! Emily! Whatever her Goddamn name is! The damn annoying one! Is she, you know, good looking?"

"Wh-what? Does it matter?"

"Yes, man! It matters!"

"She's not... ugly, you know," Broots replied evasively.

"Would you give her a go?"

"What, like- I... I'm engaged, Bobby. I don't... I'm not that kind of person. I wouldn't cheat on my fiancee."

"If you you weren't engaged, then? Would you?"

"I don't know. Why- I don't know why you're asking me something like that? I don't do one night stands, okay. Flings, whatever! I don't do them! I like to get to know a woman before I... before we... Oh you know what I mean!"

"God!" Bobby sighed heavily. "Well what if you were 'that kind of guy'?"

"Maybe. Yeah, probably. If she was interested in me, too."

"Oh. Oh! So she _is_ a looker."

"Could we just not use the word 'looker'. She's good looking, yes. Pretty, you might say."

"I'm married!" Emily growled suddenly from the bed. "Keep your hands to yourselves! My husband's insane! You touch me and he'll kill you! Then he'll come after your families and kill them, too! Even the little ones! He won't care! He'll probably even enjoy it!" She laughed.

"A little nuts, though," Bobby replied. "That always puts a dampener on things."

Broots didn't reply.

"She's blonde, right? Probably dyed, but-"

"No. She's not blonde. She's a redhead."

"No shit." Bobby laughed. "Lady, _girly_, you are so cliched, you're absolutely right. It's painful! God, I'd pity you if you weren't so fucked up!"

"I'll... I'll just go get that coffee," Broots told him. "Black, no sugar."

"Argh! Are you kidding! Lots of sugar!"

"Ah, okay... I'll just ask Par-"

"Yeah, sure, you have to ask Parker before I'm allowed to have a Goddamn coffee, now! Wow, you're a real friend, man! Ace! Let's be best friends forever, okay! Look, just fuck off! Get out of here before I lose my patience with your shitty antics and wallop you one."

"Uh..."

"What? Did I hear you say something, Mr. Broots? No? Well fuck off!"

He heard Broots scamper to the door and slam it after him, no doubt thinking he was the mad one and not the nutty girl making nutty, unsubstantiated threats meanwhile she was still handcuffed to the bloody bed.

"And you, girly, zip it. Don't make me come over there and lay down the law with you."

She snorted. "You're a jerk. I was right the first time I said it. Nothing but a jerk." She laughed again.

"_Hey!_" he growled darkly, and she quietened down. He shook his head. "Like some guy'd be damn harebrained enough to marry the likes of _you_, you nutty woman!"

"Fuck off. You don't even know my husband. You're more insane than he is."

"More insane than some loony who'd enjoy murdering someone's little kids?" He laughed.

"Fuck, you're an idiot! Your sister's right. You just buy everything everyone says, so long as it fits with your crazy little model of the world in which you're _sooo_ cool and on top of everything. Oh my God, _wow_!"

"One more word outta you and I swear-"

"Yeah, yeah! Go on! What're you gonna do? You want Parker to fucking waste you? 'Cause she'll take any excuse she can get to exercise her mad nine millimetre skills. You mess me up and she'll be on your case so fast you won't know what hit you! You really think she'll give you special consideration because you're her bro-"

Bobby put a hand over her mouth. "Shut up!" he growled menacingly. "Didn't I fucking tell you! _Shut __up!_"

She mumbled something inaudible.

"What?" He took his hand away from her mouth for a moment.

"Fuck you! The second I get out of these handcuffs," she laughed, "man, I am fucking wasting you! Won't mess around, I'll just put a bullet straight through your pretty, but pretty _stupid_ little head. Splat, and you'll be gone!" She started to laugh again but a slap across the face shut her up.

"I told you I'd slap you, bitch," Bobby scowled. "Where's your husband now, huh? Yeah! No-fucking-where, 'cause you're just lying through your _teeth_! You ain't got no husband! Crazy or not. You're just a sad little girl who's not as young as she used to be and nobody wants you anymore. Boo hoo to you. And no wonder, the way you talk. You're so bloody charming!"

"Go to Hell!" she spat, through a sob.

He didn't bother feeling sorry for her. So what if she cried? She could cry all she liked and he still wouldn't care less. He glared at her hatefully. "And don't you dare, _dare_ touch me again without my permission!"

She laughed bitterly. "Fuck you! I see through you! I _see_ through you! I know what you want. You think I wouldn't clue onto you right away, like I've never Goddamn had a man touch me before." She laughed. "You've got to be joking. I'm not a bloody idiot! You're no different!"

"What? You want me to slap you again? Huh? _Huh!_ Do you?"

"Go right ahead! Hit me! Do anything you want to me. You wouldn't be the first."

"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about," Bobby told her angrily.

"Fuck you, too, dear! _You_ wouldn't know what you're fucking talking about! Don't you tell me I wouldn't know shit, because I know a whole load of shit you'd never even fucking dream up in your wildest, drug-induced imagination! Go pop another happy pill, will you, and kindly fucking leave me alone, retard!"

"Yeah, you're the retard. You're the insane one, not me," Bobby muttered. "If Parker weren't so fussed, I'd bloody slap you one, girly. I'd slap you so hard you wouldn't _dare_ speak back to me!"

"I guess you'd know," she returned.

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" he growled.

"I'm just saying, I guess you'd know how hard 'so hard' was so I wouldn't _dare_ speak back to you." She made out like he was some kind of idiot, with the tone she used to say "dare". Like it was funny; he was funny 'cause he was so, so stupid.

"_Yeah, __I __would!_"

"As I recall, Daddy didn't like when you got smart with him, Bobby. Must have really sucked, your dad treating you like that."

"I don't know what you're talking about. My father never hit me!"

"Of course not. He wasn't your real father, he was just the guy who adopted you and lied to you for the better part of a decade and a half."

"You're fucked up in the head."

"Hmm! So you say, Bobby. So _you_ say."

"I'm just gonna ignore you. Can't be bothered listening to your rubbish anymore."

"You do that, Bobby Joe," she replied. "Do us all a favour, eh. Be a good boy and just forget I said anything; just tune it _right_ out. You were always good at that, weren't you, Bobby? Always good at doing your own thing and running roughshod over anything else anyone else ever said to you. Boy, you were good, Bobby! You were so good! I'd have fucking hit you, too! What a little asshole! No respect for your elders, for your teachers, for your _parents_! Nothing fazed you! Just, nothing at all!"

She laughed. "I would have taught you a lesson, my boy. You'd never have dared presume you meant a _thing_ in my world, if _I__'__d_ been running the show! Your parents were just _slack_! They let you get away with blue murder! Bad parents, I tell you. It's inexcusable. Then again, they'd probably been driven half mad by you and your bloody antics, by that stage."

"Do you want to die, you little whore!" he blew up, sick to death of her continual blabbermouthing.

"Ooo! Assertive, and kinda kinky!" Emily laughed, winking at him.

He didn't catch the wink, but he understood enough by her tone to tell what she thought of him. She thought she could just go on doing whatever, whatsoever she pleased and he'd just let her because he was a pushover.

"You really do have some nasty anger issues," she told him. "You should see someone about that. Professionally, I mean." She was mocking him, silently laughing at him, making him out to be a fool with her eyes and that knowing tone of voice.

She didn't know Hell about him! She was just another little girl, pouty and pissed off, pushing all the buttons in hopes that one of them would yield to her wishes and she'd get just exactly what she'd always wanted, though, in Emily's case, it wasn't going to happen. She wouldn't be messing with his head and messing him up enough that he decided it really was for the better that he let her go, let her escape.

She wouldn't be saying much of anything, anymore.

Closing his eyes, Bobby leant down and kissed her.

.

His hand slipped into her hair, fingers dragging over her scalp, and she shivered involuntarily, unable to deny the bad feeling welling within her any longer. This person, whoever he was, was not her husband, was not Lyle, and he wasn't a good person, either. Shivering, she winced when he grabbed a handful of her hair painfully and bit her lip a little too hard, hissing, "Don't even squeak!"

He might as well have said "don't even breathe"; she knew he meant the same thing, she knew he had no good intentions where she was concerned. "Please don't hurt my baby!" she whispered, trying not to let the tears in her eyes have their way and spill down over her cheeks, to cry in front of this person she didn't know, and never wanted to.

Bobby didn't reply except to reach for her leg, sliding a hand up her thigh, and she squeezed her eyes closed, just wanting this nightmare to be over. The guy might have been calling himself "Bobby", but he was nothing like Lyle's Bobby. The real Bobby would never hurt someone the way he'd hurt her, the way he intended to hurt her, and she knew he never could, not after the way he'd been hurt. But this person, this person masquerading as Bobby, had never been hurt the way that boy had been hurt, the way her husband had been hurt; the way she'd been hurt by her own brother. And he wasn't someone who'd ever be able to understand someone who had.

Her husband was dead, she knew that now.

She could only hope he listened to her and didn't hurt her baby.

She also knew, that however bad she thought she had it now, it was only going to get worse. Much, much worse. This person, Bobby, and she, still had Convergence. He wasn't going to just decide to leave her alone. He wouldn't know how.

She regretted saying the awful things she had now, but she'd had to say something, try something. She'd been telling herself that if any little part of her husband was still in there, something would trigger something, and this guy would finally look at her as though she was a human being and he'd stop hating her as much. He'd know exactly why she'd said the things she had and know she'd never meant to be a nasty bitch.

But this guy was oblivious to anything but whatever the Hell was going on in his head, his own private la-la land. People had said her husband was nuts, but she knew that wasn't true, because this guy was insane, truly crazy, and he frightened her. He really frightened her.

She would have tried reaching out to Mel through their long dormant bond – she'd once been the other woman's Mediator, she'd once been loved by Melody Parker – but she didn't even bother, knowing, already, that nothing would get by Bobby's Empathic shields. However bad, however lousy he was feeling, his Empathy would still work. The day it stopped working was the day he stopped breathing, it was just as simple as that.

She'd used to love Lyle for that, for having the guts to live with that and not only do bad things, but sometimes, good things too, but she didn't think she'd ever learn to love Bobby, and he'd never learn to love her in return. If this had been something Lyle had submitted to, changing into this horrible, horrible person, her only thought was that the only alternative must have been something far worse than death, and for him to choose this over the people he loved had to mean only one thing: it had involved Mel.

He'd always believed he'd go through Hell for that woman and he'd still be looking out for her the way she'd looked out for him when they'd been babies, when Catherine had tried to kill him with her Inner Sense and Mel had decided she wasn't having a bar of it and it would be best if they shared. It was the reason their genetics were so similar, and it was the reason he'd lived. Because Mel had gone through Hell for him, had seen something loveable in him, and he'd always believed in doing the same thing for her. He'd always loved her for that one choice she'd made even before she could remember doing so, for that one act.

She might have hated him now, but underneath, he'd always denied that it was true, had always defaulted to their past, when she'd loved him, for a single, shining moment. When she'd saved him.

Emily had never been mad at him for it, and probably never would, but she could help wishing – however fanciful, however un-Mediator of her – that she'd never met this man.

He didn't deserve what he'd been given, and she missed Lyle more than words could ever say. If she'd ever said that to Ethan or Geronimo, or even her mom or Harmony, who knew exactly who Hubertus's father was, who Saskia and Lyle's father was, they'd probably have silently been hoping Parker made good on their bet and bumped the interminable maniac off, and to Hell with all the "he's my Convergence partner" crap. And if Jarod or her dad had found out, well, they'd probably have been the ones _doing_ the bumping off, but she had a feeling, now, that she might have to make good use of that Colt 45 Lyle had given her, and blow this creep's brains out all over the nearest wall.

She couldn't just go on going on, letting him hurt her at his leisure, or anyone else for that matter, and if he so much as laid _eyes_ on her children or Lyle's, she'd go Reaper and rip his Goddamn heart out with her bare hands. No, she wasn't a real Reaper, but she knew a little about Reapers.

A little that would have been very handy if she hadn't been handcuffed to this damn bed right now.

Her only other option was to wait for Jarod to realise she wasn't where she was supposed to be and come looking for her. Waiting, hoping for Bobby to manifest any of his predecessor's better qualities would be akin to signing her own death warrant. It was never going to happen, but the longer the time ticked by, the deadlier the outcome threatened to become.

Bobby wasn't just going to "settle in" and suddenly decide he wasn't such a bad guy after all. That had all happened hours ago, and it hadn't ended well. Somehow, some way, something had gone wrong and she'd been landed with this.

This _monster_.

She almost couldn't help wondering if he'd taken after Catherine's father, Paul; if Paul had been insane like this one was, because she knew how Lyle could love people in spite of their being totally cracked. He'd loved that lunatic Lyle Bowman, after all, and his so completely messed-up wife, Elsie. He'd loved them enough, or loved himself so uncompletely, to let them treat him like less than dirt to be walked on. And even though she still hated him like Hell and would gladly have seen him burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity, he still loved his mother, Catherine. He even gave a damn about her insane, _very_ dead mother slash pretend older sister, Dorothy. He always let himself give in to caring about people too easily and made the excuse that they were just people, the same as him, and just as deserving of forgiveness and a proper chance as the next person, and she, in all of her careless abandon, had totally loved him for it.

She probably always would, because, when it came to her crazy boy, she was just crazy like that. It may well have infuriated the Hell out of their children, but she always looked at it as romantic, not sheer insanity.

Was it so much to ask for that this lunatic _dropped __dead_ and let her have her husband back? She didn't think so, at this point. She shuddered to think of herself somehow finding it within her to love this complete and utter psychopath, and thinking about the alternative, in which she hated his guts and every other single little part of him too, but lived through this shit with him anyway, made her want to puke on the spot.

She was a fucking Mediator. She was unimpressed by the world, unmoveable. She'd only ever had one weakness, one magic incantation that could truly melt her heart into a muddle on the ground without her caring one single iota; she'd still be smiling until the cows came home. And it wasn't this guy, it was the other one, the one this guy wasn't any more.

The crazy one who got around wasting people and saving little kids, just like Cathy before him, but arguably, with a higher success rate. Well, until now.

Looked like he'd finally gone the way of his mother in the end, after all.

Emily couldn't help it. She was too sick _and __tired_ not to cry. So she just let it happen, just let the tears fall and run down her face. She had absolutely no dignity, no ounce of misguided shame, left in her body.

She probably didn't _stop_ crying, until she fell asleep.

Bobby didn't hit her or hiss at her to "zip it", but he didn't seem to give a shit, either. She would have loved to say she felt nothing, but that wasn't true, and Mediators didn't function on half truths.

Not the good ones, anyway, and she'd been trained well.

She did feel something, and not all of it was self-loathing and deep, insatiable hatred, pure and undiluted, some of it was the other feeling, the good feeling you got when you shared a part of yourself with someone you cared about in a certain way. Some of it, she had to admit, was pleasurable, and maybe she was biased, maybe she'd just taken to hating Bobby from the offset, but this person was not her friend and never would be; this person was not the man she loved and never would be. Ever.

He wasn't strictly-speaking an imposter, but to her heart, her irrational, crazy girl heart, he was! He totally was.

And he still hadn't done a damn thing about consoling her when she'd been crying her eyes out like a bloody fool. He'd probably just thought it funny, knowing him. He'd probably just thought she was trying to be comedic, because, in all honesty, she had smiled at him, and she had made that dumb comment. And before that, she'd bloody put her arm around him and hugged him like he was a bloody person! Like he was someone she could ever love.

It wasn't a perfect excuse, but to his crazy mind, she supposed it could have been. Perfectly excusable.

In honesty, she wouldn't have been less stung by some complete stranger possessing her husband's body, but the margin of difference was very, very slim indeed.

At some time around eight, when Mel decided to come stomping in in an angry mood, slamming the door off the wall and waking Emily up with a jolt and terror leaping into her thoughts, for just a second, closely followed by the thought, _Homeland __Security_, Emily decided that, bugger it, she completely loved this woman and she'd never, ever stopped. Though it was the truth, she'd generally been happy not thinking about it, but she didn't mind thinking about it now.

"You!" Parker growled with utterly convincing menace. "Your brother's late!"

"You wanna hear something funny, Miss Parker?" she asked smoothly, unperturbed by the other woman's anger. "I had not noticed that, myself." She traced a circle on the back of Bobby's hand with a finger and smiled at Parker.

"Why is he sleeping?" Parker growled.

"Beats me," Emily replied. "Maybe he's dead. I hope he's dead."

Parker marched over and grabbed hold of his arm, shaking it violently.

"What? What did you wake me up for?" he asked sleepily. "Are they here yet? Is it time to go home?" He sat up a little straighter and pulled his hand away from Emily slowly, as though still trying to figure out who it belonged to, her or him, and peered around the room sleepily, sounding a little bewildered when he asked, "Where are the aliens, Parker? I don't see them. Are they hiding?"

Emily sniggered, then mentally admonished herself for it. This weirdo wasn't her husband, and he wasn't funny. And no, she could not love him. It just wasn't allowed. Because of this maniac, her husband was dead, and she'd be damned it she didn't spend the rest of her life holding that against him, hating him for it.

"What did I wake you _up_ for?" Parker yelled, her hands starting to shake furiously.

He looked suddenly at Emily, as though completely oblivious to the daggers Parker was shooting him with with her eyes. "You don't look how I'd pictured you in my mind."

"Yeah? What's different? Maybe the fact that I _don__'__t_ have a gun to shoot you with!" She smiled sweetly.

"No. It's not that."

She sighed. "Oh well, better luck next time, I guess. We can't all be super psychic."

He touched her face. "You have nice eyes. Sad, but nice, you know."

"They're not as good as your sister's. Bet you she could kill you with those eyes alone!"

"You're really into this shooting people, killing people, goring them to death with creepy, super secret mind powers stuff, aren't you?"

She frowned, leaning away from him for effect. "Why? Aren't you?"

"Not so much," he replied unhurriedly.

Emily looked past him, to Parker. "Yeah, ah, I have the strangest feeling your loveable, hugsy brother may or may not be suffering from DID. Or just plain loving every minute of it!" she laughed stupidly.

"Bobby, leave her alone," Parker replied angrily. "She's not your plaything. You can hold hands but that's it! Are we fucking straight?"

"Perfectly fucking straight," Bobby replied easily.

Parker nodded, her eyes scowling deathly at him, and turned on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door loudly after her.

"Nice show," Emily told him.

"Why don't you just butt out of it."

"And we're back to the old psychotic crap again," she muttered cheerfully.

He glared at her. "Did you hear what I just said to you or are you fucking deaf?"

"No, I'm fucking deaf," she replied uncaringly. "Hey! I'm bored. Let's be friends again, or whatever."

"Yeah, fuck you, I'd rather puke!"

"You didn't seem to mind so much before," she reminded him.

"Yeah, well I wasn't thinking straight, okay. So just – don't fucking talk to me. With my fucking luck, you're one of them... one of them..." he made a disgusted face, "high-Class Empaths, and you messed around with my head!"

She laughed airily. "You can talk, baby! What's the matter, can't defend yourself to save your life? Can't even fend off one little girl?" She sounded amused.

His eyes flashed darkly. "Fuck you, bitch. I saw your nutty tattoo. I know what you are!"

"Aw, you think I'm an angel! How sweet!" she cooed.

He pointed a finger at her, glaring darkly. "I'm gonna find out who you are, and when I do, your ass will be sent packing – all the way back to Canada! You can just wipe that self-satisfied smile off your face now because it's not going to save you. Ever!"

She dropped the cutesy, pretend crap. "Come on, you know who I am. Don't tell me you've replaced me already, honey? Don't you remember me? Didn't we have fun times together?"

She reached out a hand, the one not handcuffed to the bed, and touched his shoulder. "I'm yours, dummy!" she said, as though it was so obvious it was almost funny. "Aw, you promised, baby! You said you'd always be just mine. And now you've gone and forgotten about me." She made a sad face. "Dang it! Now I'm real sad."

"Be sad," he growled. "I don't fucking know you." He slapped her hand away. "And I don't know what you're fucking talking about."

Her eyes hardened and she dropped her voice. "No, _you_ wouldn't. One of these days, I am gonna kill you!"

A smile twisted his lips. "I'd like to see you try!"

"If you knew who I was, you wouldn't be smiling right now," she hissed, her eyes boring into his. If he knew who she was, he'd probably shoot her on the spot and justify himself by saying, 'She was the enemy! I had no choice!'

She perked up. "Hey! But good to hear you're feeling better!" she congratulated him.

He got up and stalked off to the bathroom, thinking he might throw up then piss off to find something to pop. Pills, probably. Lots of pills. Heck, maybe he'd take up illicit drugs. He couldn't believe how fucking contaminated he felt right now just for letting that woman touch him, let alone... Let alone anything else!

"Baby," she whispered after him. "Bring back your gun and shoot me dead. There's a good lad."

.

"Bobby?" She sounded worried, suddenly. Before, she'd been humming some songs to herself, acting like she was on top of the fucking world. Now she sounded worried.

He didn't want to come out of the bathroom, he didn't want to hear her ugly, lying voice. He didn't even want to see her face ever again.

"Bobby! What are you doing in there? You better not be playing with anything sharp. You know what your doctor told you about self-mutilation. If he caught you cutting on shit again he'd send you off to the Renewal Wing in a heartbeat! And I'm not talking about Med Space, honey, I'm talking about the Renewal Wing! You know, where they fill you full of funny drugs and the shiny, multi-coloured unicorns are the _least_ of your worries!"

"Shut up," he told her, walking out of the bathroom and over to the bed and glaring at her. "Just shut up! And I suppose you'd know so much about the Renewal Wing!" He laughed.

She smiled at him. "Yeah, hon, I would. I'm a _bad_ girl!"

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. Whatever she said. What_ever_ she said.

She sighed. "What's wrong, baby? You're not feeling well? Didn't much like the look of that mean, nasty negative feedback, huh? I can totally understand," she commiserated, in a voice one might reserve for babies. "Aw! Get over here so I can hug it better!"

"You are not laying a single finger on me, woman!" he growled.

"Hey, you don't have to sound so mean, you know," she told him.

"Just don't even look at me. Maybe you're not a Possessor, but I don't trust you. And I don't like you."

"I thought you said I had nice eyes. Sad, but nice eyes, all the same. What happened to that?"

"I lied." He scowled. "And just so you know, I don't do self-mutilation!"

She tossed her chin his way. "Have a look at your wrists, hon, then run that one by me again."

He turned his hands over and looked down at his wrists, frowning. "Doesn't mean a thing," he denied. "I didn't do that. Must have been someone else, tryna make it look like I wanted to kill myself."

"Anyone else by the name of Mummy?" she asked sweetly, with a smile.

"Go to Hell!"

"Hang on. I thought that was my line. Did you just _steal_ my line?"

He laughed. She was nuts.

"That one in your hand. Yeah, the right hand. That's all you, baby. You like cutting on it when you feel shitty. Pisses Brown off to no end, but you love it! You just love giving that guy the run arounds. Bloody Welsh, bloody sheep abusers!" She snorted.

"I think you're a liar," he told her. "Nothing but a liar, and a bad one, at that. You have no imagination!"

"You couldn't handle my imagination, hon. You couldn't fucking handle it!"

He rolled his eyes, sniggering. "Hhh! You're so full of shit, Emily."

"_I_, don't force myself on people. You're the one who's full of shit, not me! Go back in there and take a hard look at yourself in the mirror." She pointed sharply to the bathroom door. "Do you think you're a good person? You're fucking deluded, if that's what you think!"

"_I_ forced myself on _you_! Don't make me _sick_!"

"Great memory. Top class memory!" she spat.

"You- you were the one begging for it!"

She laughed. "Gotta break it to you, hon, I wasn't beggin' for anything, much less your fuckin' attentions! That, my darling dear, was the Convergence. Oh, it was all the Convergence!"

He laughed. "That's bullshit! I can't believe you believe in that shit!"

"I can't believe you believe in aliens!" she mocked. "Or that they'd want anything to do with a loser like you."

"We don't have Conve-"

"Shut up, Bobby! Yes we do, and you want me to prove it to you? Do you want me to prove you wrong?"

"You just stay the fuck out of my head, lady!"

She laughed, shaking her head at the look on his face, the way he was pointing at her like the angry villagers with flaming torches and pitchforks might come to his rescue and take her away to be burnt at the stake, screaming and kicking and protesting her innocence to the last, and all.

"Just _watch_!" she whispered, and she closed her eyes, remembering.

Just a memory was all it took, a single happy memory, and then even she couldn't help herself. She'd set the trap and fallen right into it after him. She didn't even much care, she was just so bloody happy to have won, for once. She hoped he hated himself for the rest of his life! She hoped he wished he had cut his wrists and bled to death on the dingy, dirty bathroom floor, rather than set foot back in this room with her and their silent, invisible guest, their ever-lovin' friend, Convergence.

.

Those had really been the good old days. The days of lying and loving, and getting her head beaten against the wall at every turn by her lovable brother, Kyle. It was true, he hadn't known she was his sister – had really had no way of knowing – but he'd had no need to be such a bastard about it, either. If he'd really loved her like he'd said, he wouldn't have hurt her half as much, he wouldn't have threatened to kill her if she ever breathed a word to anyone or cut off all of her lovely, flowing red hair with a couple of shards borrowed from a smashed, broken mirror. She still had the scars from that incident; she still hated when people ran their hands through her hair, or even if she did it herself, accidentally. She always smoothed a hand over her hair, she never ran her fingers through it, over those old scars, but it was over now. It barely even mattered. She should have let go of it long ago. If she'd been smart, she would have.

And she would have let go of Lyle, too.

Sometimes, she thought she would have been better off dying when he pushed her out that window. But it wasn't as though she'd had a choice, really. That ass wipe the Mysterious Healer had decided that she deserved saving and had taken it upon his or herself to do just that. Flawlessly. The scars she could still feel when she ran her hands through her hair weren't real. Not anymore. They were long gone. But she always remembered them there; in her mind, she always replaced them once more. Obviously, she was hung up on some very bad shit.

Maybe she had been in love with Kyle, too. She honestly didn't know. She'd hated him like Hell, but maybe another part of her had loved him, too. She'd since forgiven him and now liked to think of him as her older brother, as the person Jarod met ever so briefly before he died doing a good thing. It was her own choice and she chose not to dwell on the evils of the past. Well, not all of them, anyway.

The reality of it was, a guy – no guy – had ever taken an interest in her that way before Kyle had come along and decided he liked the looks of her. Not a single guy, and maybe she'd been lonely. Maybe she'd been lonely and she'd gotten it into her head, somehow, that sex meant something like fondness, like affection for another human being, like giving a Goddamn shit.

Maybe.

But it hadn't been like that with Lyle. He actually hadn't wanted her, that first time they'd met. Just not his type, she supposed now. At least, that'd probably be anyone else's first guess. People still didn't like to think of parents abusing their kids, or dads or moms sexually abusing them. Maybe he'd been sad for her, thinking how she was just a kid, someone's Goddamn kid, and it really wasn't right.

She hadn't really been sixteen. She'd been thirteen, _almost_ fourteen, but he wasn't to know that. Even Mel had bought the lie that she was fifteen, even way back when she'd first started in boarding school, evil high school from Hell on a special scholarship, at nine (turning ten in December).

It wasn't that she hadn't looked something like sixteen. Much more so than thirteen, anyway, but maybe it had been the whole undressed thing, and farmer people were just shy, or just him. She couldn't remember if she'd had a whole heap of bruises or not because, at first, when she'd been getting ready to spring her surprise, it had been dark, mostly too dark to see, which was how he'd managed to waltz into his room without noticing her, probably wanting nothing more than to sleep through the night.

Back then, Mel had just made her break from the All-Girls' Hellaciously Awesome, Airheaded, Dear As Poison (And Just As Deadly) Academy for Misfits and Monsters. He'd had a lot on his mind. One step closer to reuniting with his family was also one step closer to crazy-person-ness.

The company hadn't made a peep either way as to what they'd thought of his work so far, and he wasn't so convinced they were all that pleased. He'd just completed his Computer Science degree by correspondence after having fled the country from rabid, insatiable detectives out for his blood for murdering Tazu and Chiyo, those two Japanese exchange students everybody else had probably known better by their Western aliases, Peyton and Ginny. And, back then, his Empathy seemed to like kicking him in the head rather than helping him out. He'd had a lot of trouble with his epilepsy, as a side effect. Sleeping would be a luxury, in his present state.

And then this crazy, naked girl had had to turn up in his room when he was happily depositing of his Sunday best clothes in his wardrobe and skip over to the door, silently, of course, deciding she'd been waiting long enough for him to get a handle on undoing his shirt buttons, and flip the light on.

Actually, now that she remembered it, he'd looked sort of stunned, but in the back of his mind scared, too. Mostly he'd probably been thinking, What the Hell! This is my house, girly. Mine! They can't take it away from me after they just _gave_ it to me! So unfair! Say it isn't so!

She hadn't really cared what he'd thought, at the time. She'd been mad as Hell at being assigned this disgusting, lowly, dirty task – "secret mission", uh-hum; ooo, ah – and had just wanted to get her bit over and done with and get a decent night's sleep, much like him.

Still, when he'd finally got his shirt buttons undone and handed her his shirt quickly to cover up – actually, he hadn't handed it to her, he'd come over and wrapped it around her – she'd sort of hoped maybe he wasn't so bad after all. It had been when she'd been tossing up between saying a quick "thank you" or just holding her tongue when she'd noticed his eyes. He had nice eyes, trustworthy eyes, and they'd reminded her of her best friend. They'd been such a comfort, those eyes. Mel's eyes, almost exactly, but not quite. Not quite, but almost exactly.

She hadn't meant to bite him so hard, she'd just panicked for a moment, forgetting that he wasn't Kyle, and by then, her little teeth had sunk in deep enough to draw blood, to leave a noticeable scar, when it had healed up finally. She hadn't meant to hurt him, but even she'd had to admit, she liked the effect of the finished product. She liked how she wasn't the only one who'd been mutilated by these freaks who'd given her some huge, nasty tattoo and that ratbag, Kyle.

She remembered thinking he might get angry with her, or shove her off the bed and out the door – or maybe the window, it was closer – in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, in nothing more substantial but someone else's shirt. Or maybe he'd even take that back off her. It was, after all, his.

But he hadn't been mad, he hadn't made a big fuss, and she'd pretended she couldn't see the blood because she'd taken his hand and walked over and switched the light back off before leading him to to bed. She'd even mustered a smile, even though it hadn't made much difference in the dark, either way.

Later, when they'd met again after that night, he'd showed her how it was nothing, the couple of stitches that had gone into putting it back together were nothing. Soon, it would disappear, never to trouble anyone again.

When it was time to take the stitches out and she'd learned it had left a scar, she'd been secretly pleased. After all, what say did she get in her life any other day? No matter how badly she was hurting, nobody got it, nobody saw or cared.

But now someone knew what it felt like to hurt, now someone knew what she felt like everyday, and she wasn't letting go of her one chance for anything. Not for a guilty conscience or for learning that the guy was a Pretender from the same branch as nutters Kyle and Mel's old friend, Jarod, or _anything_! She'd take all the pain just to get a little of her own back, just to get away from Kyle for a moment or two; she'd even lie and pretend she really liked the guy, and he was sorta neat.

She never meant to honestly like the guy, but he'd had those eyes, and he'd had some strange sort of sad charm that appealed to her, and when she'd saw how he was starting to like her, she'd felt like a bit of a traitor from not liking him back just a little. T-Corp could make her a traitor to everyone she'd ever loved or cared about, to herself and all of her dreams, to the whole of humankind and the whole damn planet, and the Centre could make her a traitor to T-Corp and to her own body, to a thousand innocent kids, but nobody, nobody made her a traitor to love!

She wouldn't let them.

So she'd let herself believe in love, instead, and she'd fallen in love for the first time.

It had been an honest mistake. She'd been a kid, just a kid. She hadn't known how bad love could be, when you fell so hard you never wanted to get up again, she'd never imagined it would last, never imagined it could possibly last. She'd always thought maybe she'd run away, get away somehow, someway, and meet a nice boy and settle down, have a family, a peaceful life from then on in. But she'd only been dreaming, and even she had known it, deep down inside. That peaceful life, that family she dreamed of, they weren't real, and they never would be. She'd never do any better than some computer geek with eyes that _kind __of_ reminded her of her best friend – who she hadn't even been _in __love_ with, because _she_'d been a _she_ (even though she'd loved her like a mother and a sister and a daughter and just a best friend). She'd never do any better than the boy who she couldn't even tell the truth, that someone was hurting her, badly; the boy who, when he found out all by himself, couldn't even hold a gun steady to say, "Boo. I'm watching you!" A boy who'd never, ever be able to defend her, her, a girl who couldn't, could never risk defending herself for fear of blowing her cover, for fear of recriminations, and being sent back to an even bigger Hell, and then they'd just had to go and have a baby together. A baby she couldn't imagine never loving, but at the same time, could very much imagine never once being able to defend, to be a parent to.

When Kyle had come after her, she'd used to run, but he'd always been faster, but when she had that baby, she'd run – she'd run without fear of dying, of suffocating – and she'd run faster, she'd looked after her baby and been a mother. A real, proper mother.

And just that, just loving these two strange people, and having them love her in return, in their own funny way, had been her whole world, had been the only thing in the whole world that meant anything to her, that did anything to her, that kept her alive. Through all of the pain and horror and terror, she'd stayed strong, and she'd loved with all her might, with all her heart and soul, and she'd loved her life.

She'd been happy.

And then everything had changed and the world had come crashing down like the crazy dream, the mad, mad fantasy it had always been. Nobody built a sanctuary for love in the middle of Hell and lived to see the day the fires didn't burn it and all their dreams and hopes and everything, everyone they'd ever cared for, to the fiery ground in an agonising, excruciating, blood-curdling final scream before their blood turned to cinders and they turned to ash, scattered apart by a single breath or a single laugh.

It just wasn't the done thing.

Those were the days Emily missed most of all.

The person she met fourteen years later in that building wasn't the same person she'd fallen in love with as a girl; they didn't even look all that much alike, except for the eyes, the eyes were exactly the same, until you looked into them, into their depths, and saw how much sadder they were. The person she had loved was almost entirely gone, erased by this new person who'd come to take his place, who'd come to _survive_. But underneath, she'd found something she remembered, something worth salvaging, and she'd found a way to love this new person just as she'd loved the old one. They'd been through Hell and back, those two, but she'd always thought they would always have each other. After that, they would always have each other, and even if they had to go back there tomorrow, back to Hell, so long as they had each other, they'd always come back out the other end more or less intact. She didn't think it could get much worse.

She'd been so wrong.

Suddenly, today, she found herself the only one left standing, and it hurt. It hurt like she'd had her soul ripped out of her body and thrown to the north winds that moved so much faster than her human legs could take her and bruised and battered her soul on a thousand, a hundred thousand mountains and valleys and icebergs before it finally decided to give up the ghost.

If she hadn't felt any pain, if she'd been numb to it all, she honestly believed she could have believed she'd died.

The single reason she hadn't given up was love, out of love for her family, out of respect for their love of her, and there was no other reason whatsoever.

She was alone, and even if her family loved her, even if she made friends, in the future, she would still be alone in that deep, dark corner of her heart. She would never let anyone in that completely again, and she would never fall in love that wholly again.

She just couldn't.

She couldn't.

So yes, she cried. And yes, she acted a little crazy. And yes, maybe she even took stupid risks, but there was nothing left to stop her, so long as she went on breathing, she would be fine. She would be perfectly fine.

She _did_ scare herself. She scared herself for not just herself, but for her unborn baby, for Aretha, and everyone who loved her, for all of her wasted potential and all of the happy moments she'd never really feel, in her heart.

But she couldn't help it. She couldn't do anything about it.

She was lost.

.

Now, remembering how very differently they'd both assimilated their traumatic experiences, she thought she'd probably come out more intact, more whole, more able to look out for herself. Lyle had liked to bring it up – he'd say something like "Mummy and Daddy loved me", or "My parents loved me; they were good parents" – as though to remind himself how thoroughly he'd screwed up, how thoroughly he'd messed up all of their potential and all of their lives in the process, because, underneath, they'd had just as much potential as the next person to be great, to be good people, but his presence had somehow equated to a great big fail there. He'd liked to punish himself that way, and it had upset her, but she'd never said, "Look, will you listen to yourself? Just listen to yourself! Do you have any idea how much you're damaging yourself, my love?"

She'd never had the guts. Now, she wished she had. She wished she'd even just once considered the possibility that he mightn't be able to take it anymore; that he might really need her. She'd always been thinking about herself, about how much she missed him and the kids missed him and they'd never got their happy ending, after all.

She'd just known he loved her, and she'd assumed it would be enough, if she just loved him back. But it hadn't been. It hadn't been, and now she was so lost, so alone, and she couldn't not kick herself. He'd hate to see her doing it, but she just couldn't not. She wanted to turn the time back and do things differently. She wanted them to talk more and to spend time together, to _really_ be in love again, not just to love each other to the ends of the earth and back. But to be _in_ love.

Stuck in Hell alone, she could still dream. She could still dream that maybe things might have been different, that maybe she'd be the one to make the difference, even now, to bring Bobby around and make him want to make himself a better person. She could dream these things and cry herself to sleep at night, and, when she woke up in someone's arms, tell herself she felt warm there. Tell herself she meant something there, and she made a difference by being there.

There was a difference between the future and the truth, and maybe, just maybe, she _could_ do something. Mean something.

She had to have something to give her reason to go on, to give her a reason to live.

.

When Jarod rang her on the phone at three in the morning – a little earlier than usual but that was understandable, he was worried for his sister – she quite simply told him, "I don't have your sister. Lyle does. Why don't you come get her before he messes her up too badly, big brother? I warn you, she may be unrecognisable if you wait too long. I can't do anything about it. What, me? Take on him? A big, scary Reaper? What do you think I am, nuts? No way! Oh, and _Jarod_, bring your gun. And some incendiary rounds, if you have." Then she merrily hung the phone up and dropped it onto the mattress beside her and lay down and closed her eyes. She was tired. If nobody minded, she was going to get some sleep.

.

"I will not let us, we hurt you again. I know you think you have to be brave, but you should not have to do it alone. That is not... right."

Emily opened her eyes to find that it wasn't yet morning. The room was dark, the windows, dark. But someone was talking softly, saying something, maybe even talking to _her_.

She frowned, peering into the dark and gloom and saw that she didn't have to peer too far. The same someone was also sitting very close, and they had rested a hand on her head. They might even have been stroking her hair. It was all very creepy.

"_Bobby?_" she whispered, her eyes widening. Was this _actually_ Bobby?

Bobby frowned, then said, "This is not my name, Emily Russell. My name is... complicated."

She struggled to sit up, frowning still, and actually said, "Aliens complicated?" before she had the good sense to zip it.

Bobby tilted his head, but the motion was jerky. "Aliens?" he repeated, thinking about that.

She leant closer. "I'm Emily, but you already know that. Who are you?"

"I am a person," he replied, with wide eyes.

"I can see that. Are you a person with a name?"

"Yes. Person with a name. Names. Which is... which is... more than one, more than one name."

"Yeah. Me, too. Emily Russell. Two names. Pretty freakin' awesome, hey!"

"It is a question?"

She frowned, then backtracked, trying to follow his line of thought. "Awesome. It means... good."

"Good... Good... Yes, a descriptive word. Describing something. Something is... good. We know this word. We know _of_ this word." He nodded.

"I. You say 'I', even though you have two names. They're separate but they're also complimentary. They describe, give a name to the same thing."

"Ye-yes."

She smiled. "I."

"I." He nodded again. "I understand, but we... we are different. Sometimes, we are I, then, other times, we are we. U-us..."

"Yeah, yeah. Because you're an Empath."

"Yes. Perhaps."

"Y-you're going to help me. I heard you talking before but I was still a little tired. I just remembered what you said. You said I shouldn't have to be... brave alone."

"We are Noah. We will return, now. We will be here, with you. Understand, we will not hurt you. Do you accept?"

She frowned. "Do I accept?" she asked uncertainly.

"If you should agree, Emily Russell, we would ask that you not reveal our true identity to anyone. Not to anyone. Is this, to you, acceptable?"

"Of course. I won't tell anyone. I'll keep your secret."

"You are... good."

"Thanks... I guess."

"Your gratitude is not required, Emily Russell. We are responsible; we must rectify the error. We will do this, if you so desire. Do you accept?"

She frowned, half shrugging a shoulder. "I accept," she replied awkwardly, hoping this wasn't just some crazy game Bobby was playing with her, messing with her head for kicks.

"We do not 'play'. We do not take part in games. That is not our function. We do not... act to experience enjoyment. We do as we are instructed, as we may to best serve the Earth and its lifeforms, though it is an established trend that our focus is primarily directed at the humans."

"Are you, um, are you always going to talk like that?" Emily asked, looking suddenly uncertain about the whole idea. She was dreaming, right? She'd wake up in the morning and share a private laugh with herself about all of this.

"We may choose to assimilate."

_Assimilate_, she thought, remembering that that was the word Lyle had used the first time he'd met Parker, when they'd both only been kids, really, and no older than seventeen. He'd told her he was an alien who'd come to her world seeking refuge from war and that he'd had to assimilate, but that some of his people had not progressed through the assimilation process in the same way that he had, they had not ended up as humans. _Assimilate._ Sydney and Jacob had had to assimilate when they'd come to America after the war.

"Sounds good."

"You may resume sleeping."

"Ah... Okay. Goodnight."

"I understand. Good... night also, to you."

Emily closed her eyes, feeling "Noah" take his hand from her hair, and sighed. Holy shit! Noah was a mutant. Whatever they'd done to him, it was little wonder Bobby, as Noah's successor, had been so freakin' strange.

Reminding herself that Noah had been able to pick up on her feelings, she tried to remember to think (and feel) a little more quietly, a little more covertly. She wouldn't want to accidentally upset the kid. "Night," she said again.

"I understand."

.

"Do you wish for our... involvement to continue?" Noah asked, appearing beside her on the bed and passing her a glass of water.

She'd woken up ten minutes ago to find herself alone and had started to wonder where he'd nicked off to. Apparently, nowhere much. "Whoa! Wait! _Involvement?_ How... how old are you, Noah?"

"We are as old as we look."

"Yeah, but..."

"We are no longer the child we once were."

"R-right." She took the glass weakly and took a small sip. "Um, I have no idea. Whatever you're comfortable with, I guess."

"We remember things."

"What?"

"Things from... us. You would say, from the others."

She took another sip of her water, and nodded. "I get it. So, um... I have to say, Noah, it still seems kind of... awkward to me."

"We shall assimilate."

"Um... yeah..." She didn't really know what to say to that.

"Our sister arrives."

"Assimilation time?" Emily joked lamely, smiling at him awkwardly, then felt like kicking herself. It wasn't really that funny. He was probably terrified, only the company had never allowed him to feel anything like that himself, had only ever allowed the experience to be other people's experiences of it. She felt really horrible.

"Bobby," Parker pointed to the floor beside her as though she was talking to a dog, telling it to get its butt over there.

"Sorry, I don't have furry ears of a waggily tail or I'd, you know, bound over there and stare up at you with loving, pet-like," he grinned, finding just the right word, "_devotion_." Stopping next to her, he crossed his arms, his smile cooling a little.

"Funny. Funny," Parker muttered, clearly unimpressed. She didn't find him funny. "I want you to tell me what's going on with Jarod. Is he going to come try and rescue his sister or not? Use your Empath mojo and figure it out!"

"I'm not actually an Oracle-type Empath, Parker. You get that, right? I'm just a regular type Empath, who just so happens to be a Class Five."

"Oracle-type?" she growled. "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not Merchant! I don't know shit about your freaky kind, Bobby!"

"Yeah, um... Okay. I don't foretell the future, I just work with the present and, the past. Do you understand me now?"

"Loony! Yeah, I understand you now," she scowled. "Can't you just... Pretend you're an Oracle thing?"

"No, because I'm not. Unless you want me to make up a load of nonsense and say it really convincingly with the occasional evasive glance at the door thrown in for dramatic effect, because I could totally manage that."

She scowled. "Bobby, you know something? Even _Emily_ could do that!"

Noah glanced dubiously at Emily. "I don't think so. I think I do winning charm much better than she does, frankly."

"Shut up! Just ring me when you know something!" she growled, and stomped off out the door.

"Good morning to you, too, Parker!" he called out after her. "Don't work too hard, will you! Life's not all ab-"

She slammed the door loudly.

"Abrupt."

"That was good!" Emily told him enthusiastically. "I don't think she suspected a thing."

"Others may argue that Melody Parker has a naturally suspicious mind, Emily Russell."

"Oh... Yeah, I guess they might..."

He walked over, reaching over to take the empty glass from her.

"Th-thanks," she replied.

"Do not thank me, Emily Russell. Not only is the sentiment wasted on me, it is also uncomfortable for I, me. My protocols do not explain how to process gratitude. It is merely unnecessary. Please try to remember this for in the future."

"Yep. I will."

He took the glass to the sink and washed it and rinsed it, then turned it upside down on the small, metal draining board. "Are you in need of nourishment, Emily Russell?"

"Actually, I'm not really hungry right now, but I think I should eat something anyway. I'm... in that way. The family way."

"You are in the way of... of-?" His eyes lost focus on her face for a moment, glancing behind her. "I am confused. Clarify, Emily Russell."

"Pregnant. I'm pregnant."

"I understand." He headed for the door. "I shall return."

"Yeah, and I'm still handcuffed to this damn bed," she grumbled, placing a hand on her middle and sighing heavily. "Watch, I'll just whistle and the mothership will arrive and beam me up and I'm outta here, baby. Next stop, the Andromeda Galaxy!" She laughed. "Yeah, right..." she muttered.

.

"Who the Hell were you just talking to?"

Emily opened her eyes and deduced from the angry look on his face that Bobby had returned, and he wasn't too pleased about his temporary leave of absence, either.

"Tinker Bell," she replied honestly. "Do you mind? It was kinda, you know, a _girl_ thing."

He laughed. "No you weren't! You're bloody lying! Tell the truth."

"Aliens. There, the truth. I was talking to a bunch of aliens. They decided they wanted to know about grown-up fun-time stuff and you'd be the perfect person to borrow for a couple of hours of fun, flirting and a fling."

"You're insane."

"Insane _and_ hungry. I thought the aliens were bringing me something back to eat. Strangely, I don't see food. Can you just go and get me something instead. I'm really kind of hungry now. I'd go myself, but I'm sorta tied up with something else, so..."

He scowled and moved closer, leaning over to undo the handcuff. "Happy?"

She rolled her eyes. "My hair looks like a nest and I look like shit. Do you seriously-"

He grabbed her arm and yanked her off the bed. "Walk!"

Biting back a sob, she glared at him and stood up properly, walking after him to the door so he wouldn't have to yank on her arm unnecessarily hard.

She was seriously starting to wish Noah had stuck around longer. She didn't know what had happened with him, but apparently New Bobby wasn't such an easy mark as he'd first calculated.

.

"Bobby!" That was Parker, losing it.

"Lay off me, lady! She was complaining about dying of starvation and I didn't see you lot lifting a finger of concern. Jarod's not going to bother coming to save her if she's _dead_!"

"Pipe the fuck down, animal!" Parker growled, then turned to glare deathly at Emily. She didn't add anything further, but turned on her heel and stalked away.

"Who are you calling 'animal'!" Bobby scowled after her, and laughed.

Emily didn't say a word.

"Move!" Bobby growled, and they started walking again, down the steps towards the diner they could see a short way down the road.

.

Emily was quietly taking in the sound of crunching gravel underneath their shoes as they walked, following the road to the diner, when Bobby started to say, "Look! This is bullshit. I don't dislike women, and I don't even know you. I don't know what's wrong, but something sure is. I don't like it. I don't like it. It has to stop."

"Are you kidding me?" Emily laughed, looking up from her feet and meeting his eyes.

"No! No, I'm not. Today, I'm not. You're absolutely right. I'm a jerk. I've been acting like a jerk. Worse, for fuck sake! It's... It isn't me! I know it isn't. Hell, even _you_ know it, and we don't even know each other!" For a moment, he looked uncertain. "Right?"

She didn't say thing to that.

"Right, Em? We don't know each other! We've never met before!"

"You threw me out of a window," she admitted quietly. "You tried to kill me. I was interfering with the Centre's plans for Mirage, a fact they were none to happy about. I _was_ supposed to die. I guess I just decided to Hell with that and to Hell with you, too."

"I... meant to kill you?" He frowned, trying to imagine that. "Is that why I've been so hostile towards you, because... I resent you for messing up... I don't know, my image with the company?"

She sighed heavily, conceding, "Possibly."

"Wh-why? Why did you call me Lyle?"

"Because I thought you _were_ Lyle. You're an Empath, Bobby. A high-Class Empath. You've got... alters. Successive personalities. The last time you and I met, you were Lyle. Now you're Bobby. But a different Bobby to the other Bobby. There was... another Bobby before Lyle." She had no idea why she was telling this lunatic all this, but she supposed it didn't really matter. If he was planning on throwing her under and incoming truck then she probably wouldn't have much chance of stopping him. She was just a regular woman and he was a (sort of) Reaper.

"I get it. I think... What do you mean, successive personalities?"

"Bobby... The old Bobby, was more Empathically attuned than Lyle, and Lyle was more... you know, Empathic than you are. Successive personalities are a coping mechanism. They screen the level of Empathic streaming you bring in. But in a safe way, in a way that doesn't induce massive amounts of negative feedback that could end up potentially... killing you. Lyle: Bobby and he were epileptic. Because, because they hadn't grasped the correct method of processing the Empathic streaming they were receiving _in __its __entirety_, but there were other things too. Thinks like those blisters on your face, and bruises, lots of those; the usual aches and pains you'd feel if you'd fallen down a flight of stairs, say. All of the really charming Empathic enticements."

"And what are you?"

"I'm nothing." She rephrased. "I mean, I'm a Recessive. Like you said. We met in IRIS, which is in Canada. Lyle used to work there in Educational Programming which he was quite capable at. I was a carer at the Farm. Where they house the... children... and generally go about readying them for assignment to outside branches or, for sale, you know. We were a couple. Thing is, Bobby, and I don't agree with it, but the company somehow got it into their head that I was from T-Corp and an enemy mole. They said, you know," she gestured a hand in his direction, "to you, 'Take care of it, old boy', and you did. Of course you did. I understand that. You didn't have much choice. But, ever since then, I guess you've felt a bit... slighted. Betrayed, that sort of thing. You probably thought I was the enemy, as well. I'm not saying I like what happened, but I get where you were coming from. If it had been the other way around, I'm sure I would have taken you out, too. No trouble, it's just like taking the trash out, right?"

"You're a human being, Emily," he replied with disgust in his voice.

"I did go to that school. I won a scholarship; of course I was going to go. I wasn't special enough for them, mind, but I made respectable grades. I know that. I know I'm a human being."

"Apparently I have trouble grasping the concept," he muttered angrily.

"Ah, I'm over it." She was rambling, saying the first thing that popped into her thoughs however untrue, but she couldn't stop.

"I should start treating you better." He stopped and turned to meet her eyes. "Starting with an apology."

"Oh, don't!" she told him. "You don;t want Parker seeing that. She'd flip something massive. Just," she pushed some hair behind her ear, "just keep walking. Like I said, I'm over it. If 'you're forgiven' is what you want to hear, then..." She made sure he was watching her, looking into her eyes. "You're forgiven."

He shook his head. "You don't have to... I..."

"Right, but all that's in the past. We're good now."

He let her wrist slip out of his hand, glancing down at the ground, at her small feet. "I guess so," he replied quietly.

"Good. Let's keep walking. I'm starving."

The started walking again, the gravel crunching under their shoes once more.

"Sorry."

"Forget it. We got there in the end, didn't we?"

"What if... What if it happens again? Is this Convergence deal for real, or...?"

"As far as I know, it is."

"I guess Lyle wasn't real thrilled with the whole concept." He frowned. "But you... trusted him?" He shook his head. "Are you really married?"

"Nooo! I just... like to think we are. I guess it makes the whole thing easier to digest."

"When it's your husband, pardon me for saying so, but _throwing_ you out a window?"

"It was his job," she defended, as though she could totally empathise.

Bobby eyes widened and he stared at her in horror. "Emily, that isn't okay! What I did to you, the way I treated you, it isn't okay!"

"It's passed, it's over. It's _done __with_! Let it go, Bobby. Move on. Hell, I don't know, maybe we could even be friends, apart from the whole work thing..."

He stared at her unfathomably. "Work thing? Y-your- Some guy you think of as your husband decides to throw you out of a window one day and you just write it off as some _'__work __thing__'_?"

"What was I supposed to do? Say, 'Thank you very much for the 45, babe, but you might want to stand back, I'm going to blow your brains out now and I don't want to ruin my charming and rather pricey day attire?'"

He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't get you."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual," she replied, then, daringly, picked up his hand and placed it on her stomach. "You remember me telling you I was... under the weather in a rather specific way? Well, her name is Aretha – we already decided, a while ago – and I guess she's your daughter, too."

"What?" He took his hand back slowly.

"You have a son of your own, in actual fact. He's an Empath, like you. He's eleven this year and his name's Reagan Elroy. Officially, of course, he's your little brother, but that's... a long story, and for another time. And we have a grown-up daughter named Saskia who currently continues to avoid the company's clutches whilst enjoying all the highlights of being a wanted asset and a high-Class Empath turned free-worlder."

"That's a lot to, um... a lot to process," he admitted.

"You'll get used to it," she returned encouragingly, smiling a little bit. She sighed, "Bobby..."

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad... I'm glad we got this worked out, and I don't think... I think I could have behaved a little more maturely also. I was... winding you up, just because I could. I was mad at you for taking my husband away from me. I..." She frowned. "I'm sorry."

"Don't sweat it. You're already forgiven, Em. It's the least I can do."

They finally arrived at the diner and he picked up her hand, spotting Broots and the Sweeper from yesterday sitting by one of the large windows, chatting away about something. He tightened his grip on her hand, in case they looked over and saw the two of them, standing in the parking lot looking a little too casual.

Emily suppressed a sigh and told him, "Lyle and Broots were friends, you know. Yeah, Broots is a tech, too."

"Okay."

"Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you're gonna be alright."

He laughed bitterly.

"I think we just needed to reconnect again, that's all," she lied, hoping he'd cheer up a bit. Maybe, if he wasn't stressed, he wouldn't be so quick to go over the deep end again. She had to give it a go, even if it turned out to be rubbish.

.

Inside, they ordered and took seats at a table to wait for someone to bring their order out. The Sweeper shot an inquisitive glance their way, but Bobby completely ignored him. He only realised they'd forgotten to order drinks when Emily looked down at her empty hands and then back up to his face. "I could really go for a coffee."

He nodded and stood up, expecting Emily to stay seated at the table, but she got to her feet as well and glanced in the direction of the windows to a short sideboard with an urn and a few kitcheny implements standing by, and a small bar fridge.

"Looks like they only have instant," Emily said sadly, then sighed. "I guess we can't have everything we want, can we?" She turned a hand up and gestured towards the counter they'd just come from, not more than two minutes ago, indicating that he should do ahead of her.

It was just a split second, but he almost stayed where he was. When Emily had gestured ahead of her, he'd caught site of the painful, ugly bruising on her wrist, and, as though a wave had just rolled into shore and washed right over him, it had been painful for him, too. But the pain he'd felt wasn't just in his wrist, it was deeper than that. A part of him wanted to take back that pain he'd caused her, a part of him had been struck down in horror.

But, almost as soon as it had come, the feeling was gone. He'd done all he'd needed to do; noted it, analysed it, categorised it, and filed it away for future reference. Without offering her a smile, he stepped around the table and walked ahead, and that was the moment he realised he could never, ever face up to telling her the truth. Bobby had not come back, he was Noah; he had never left. He'd just been playing a game with her. Feeling what she'd felt, feeling the utter desperation and the feeling of uselessness that had literally rolled off her in waves, he'd wanted to give her this one chance to work things out with Bobby, with this last small part of her husband left in the universe. But now he knew, he was a deceiver and a liar. He could do a great many things, but he couldn't comprehend the truth behind the feelings she took part in during her every waking hour, with every breath she took. He could understand, oh yes, but he could not feel what she felt, he could not feel what the other humans felt. He was... different. He was not her husband; he was not new Bobby or old Bobby or even Tory. He was not Melody's brother. Those others had been Melody's brothers: he was a machine. A living, breathing machine.

And he was a bad, bad machine.

.

They'd left the counter and were making themselves coffees over at the hot drinks station when he accidentally spilled the drink Emily had been passing him on the front of her cardigan. He couldn't understand how it had happened, at first, and he'd been scared by the way Emily's eyes had widened and she'd stepped sharply back, as though afraid of him, but then he saw how his hands were shaking and he wondered why that was. It was a moment before he remembered that Bobby and Lyle had been diabetic. Maybe he was, too.

"I'm very sorry," he told Emily quickly, but she didn't want to hear his apology. The drink hadn't been hot enough to scold her, but it was been warm enough to feel unpleasant. She shook her head, pulling her cardigan off quickly, and he forced himself not to concentrate on the way she'd flinched when he'd apologised, put his mind on something else, on her cardigan and the coffee stain that was very obvious against the soft pink colouring of the material.

"I have to go and wash this out," Emily said quickly, not wanting to meet his eyes, and he was sure she thought he'd done it on purpose, thought Bobby had seen her glance at the man who'd served them at the counter and gotten mad when he'd thought he'd seen this little moment pass between them. She thought he'd been getting even with her for betraying him and sharing a moment with the man behind the counter, for hurting him by pretending to care when really she'd rather spent time with someone she knew nothing about and had just met five minutes ago and had barely exchanged a handful of words with.

What made it worse was her feeling that he'd do it again, that he'd keep doing it, because that was just what he was like. What was worse was when she decided she'd just have to put up with it if she ever hoped to help him.

Snapping back to the present, he saw her turn away and head off in the direction of the bathrooms, drawing a quick glance from the Sweeper, but, again, he didn't bother to meet the man's eyes and picked up both of their cups, walking quickly after her and leaving the drinks at their table on the way past. The Sweeper didn't trust her, he was counting on Bobby to keep an eye on her, so that was just what Noah intended to do.

When Emily pushed open the door to go into the women's bathroom, he stopped her with a hand on her arm and told her, "I'll go in with you. You might've burned yourself." If anyone had been looking, they'd have thought this request logical enough, though nobody had been paying particular attention to the pair by the bathrooms. They all had their own lives and their own worries to preoccupy them. All except for the Sweeper. Broots was merely staring down at his coffee. He didn't like the way the Sweeper kept making himself so obvious, but he wasn't game enough to say anything about it.

"I'm fine," Emily assured him, in the mirror, dabbing at the stain with a piece of hand towel she'd dipped under the running tap. Sighing heavily, she threw the scrap of soggy hand towel away and just shoved the stained patch of her cardigan under the running water instead. "Did you hear me? I said, 'I'm fine.'" As soon as she said it, she felt bad for it, and, in her mind, she was already thinking of the ways he'd find of punishing her for that, too, but he knew why she'd snapped at him, knew he'd been staring, making her nervous.

Reaching past her, he turned the tap off and noticed, in the mirror, the way her jaw tightened and her eyes grew that fraction darker, harder. She was waiting for him to get angry and it to be over.

He glanced around at her and saw that she wasn't looking at him, but glaring at a corner of the mirror, so he put a hand up and turned her chin so that she was looking at him, so he could catch her eye, and finally, she did.

He could feel his heart beating in his chest. It was in no way calm: a mistake, he was sure. It was his responsibility, his duty, to maintain proper working order of his body; to remain calm and collected and at his optimal level of efficiency.

He stared into her defiant green eyes and could feel her nausea and rapidly rising fear, almost as if it were his own, yet he knew very clearly that it was not. It was Emily Russell's. And then he did something unforgivable.

He tilted her chin up just so and dropped his lips to hers and kissed her.

.

Jarod was beyond pissed. Parker was pissed, but Jarod was way, way beyond pissed. He'd arrived at the motel to get Emily back only to find that Emily wasn't there, and Parker wasn't giving anything away. She was standing on one side of the table, him on the other, both pointing guns at each other.

Her eyes were sparkly and capable of anything, but his were hard and cold, capable of one very deadly thing.

Neither of them moved, staring each other down, each determined to win, but Jarod saw the little flicker of movement at the corner of Parker's lips that meant she'd missed him, she'd missed pissing him off and seeing the look on his face when she did, and shit, how she wanted to throw him a cocky grin and see his last resolve snap, and see the very moment when she won, and he broke down in tears, just Jarod. Just Jarod, not some wonder Pretender or saviour of the company known as the Centre. Just another human being by the name of Jarod.

She knew she could do it, and she knew she'd love it, more than anything else in the world, when she did.

"_Where __is __she?_" he growled in a low voice, shattering the quiet of the room with a hundred fury-filled unspoken threats. He glared back at his old friend, and saw the little spark go off in her eyes. The temptation was just too great. She couldn't stop herself from laughing any longer.

Except, she didn't laugh. Instead, she dropped to the floor with a loud thud.

"Parker?" He set his gun down on the tiny, round table between them and hurried around to the other side, dropping down onto the carpet by her side. If he hadn't just seen it happen, he may have been led to believe she'd merely fallen peacefully asleep on the floor with a Smith & Wesson nine millimetre in her hand. Her colour was as normal as it ever was; she wasn't a bit pale, or a bit clammy.

"Parker?"

He reached out to touch her forehead and drew back his hand as though shocked. He knew what had knocked her unconscious, he knew that feeling! It was Convergence!

He resisted the urge to touch her and sighed softly, sitting down beside her on the carpet. It had to be Lyle. She didn't have that strong a bond with anyone else on the team, and Sydney wasn't around today. He'd had to go to his exciting conference. Parker professed not to share any sort of bond with that sociopath, but he knew that wasn't true.

Deep down, a part of her probably adored him as much as he adored her. He knew Little Miss Parker was fully in favour of his being their brother; Parker had told him once, when she'd probably had one two many glasses of vodka, that the pesky little girl kept trying to convince her that part of that serial killing, cannibalistic maniac was not all bad, was salvageable, but Parker had assured him that little girl held no sway over her anymore. She was a grown woman!

At the time, Jarod had actually considered confessing to her that he didn't completely hate Lyle, just as he'd never completely hated Alex. They were family; they shared the same anomaly, after all. Then he'd decided against it. He'd shuddered to think what Sydney's take on it would be, or what connotations Parker would put on his saying that he felt like she was a part of his family. No doubt, she'd take offence; or laugh at him and say he missed the hell hole, he missed "home".

Glancing at Parker's peaceful expression, he stood up slowly and decided he might as well have a look around – whilst he had the opportunity. If Lyle really was distracted by his Convergence partner, Jarod just knew he'd be fighting tooth and nail to break free of its enchantment. He was so fond of "witchy" things, of powers that outshone his own! Although, he recalled, as Ethan had told it, that Lyle had been the one who'd first told him about Convergence, and that had been long ago. He'd thought Raines might have been the guilty culprit there, but no, it had been his favourite, loopy Pet. The pet, it seemed, had believed in Convergence, too. But if he believed in it, Jarod had only been able to surmise that it was because he'd learnt by personal experience that it was real, which most likely meant that his Convergence partner had also met with the wrong end of one of his bad moods that often cropped up when he discovered, to his horror, that he was not _completely_ in control of the situation.

He frowned, already over by the door and glancing back at Parker. If Lyle's Convergence partner was dead, then how could they be together. Unless, he thought, it was someone else and not Lyle at all. Unless it was Ethan.

He pulled the door closed silently and did a quick mental sweep of his surroundings. For some reason, the place appeared to be deserted. He wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

.

He'd just finished checking out the room that corresponded with the key he'd found in Parker's motel room, finding nothing of consequence in the process, when he spied Broots and another man pulling up in a car in the parking lot. Shit!

He quickly found a promising exit opportunity, but not before catching a snatch of the conversation between Broots and the Sweeper with him. The Sweeper appeared to be angry about something but Broots was telling him, "She's not going to get away, Lee. You're not the only one with Sweeper training. Remember, Bobby's a Level Five, _plus_, he spent a good five years training L5s on top of that, as a Primary. The guy's a Reaper, Lee. If the girl makes does somehow manage to evade him, he's not going to lose her. You know they can probably _hear_ your heart beating from- From here to the car!"

Lee laughed disbelievingly, but Jarod wasn't paying attention. He was already thinking that maybe this Bobby person Broots had been talking about was Lyle, and maybe the girl was Emily.

He waited for Lee and Broots to let themselves into their respective motel rooms before making his escape, his eyes coming to rest on the diner down the road as he was unlocking his car door. What if that's where they were?

.

Emily backed away from him roughly, lifting a hand to cover her mouth, her eyes shining a little too much, then she turned and ran out of the bathroom, leaving her cardigan behind as though she'd completely forgotten about it.

Noah didn't follow her, but merely stared at the door she'd just fled out of. Something told him not to go after her. He wasn't sure what it was exactly, and then it fell into place like the last puzzle piece on the board.

Jarod. (Child of Prophecy: mistook, misunderstood, misjudged, forced into a life he'd never wanted. The one who would save them, so they said. Or destroy them. Who had been a beginning, and could be an end, with just the right persuasion. The One. Jarod Russell, no middle name; Emily Russell's older brother.)

Jarod had come to take her away with him, away from them, away from _him_. If he let him, Jarod would take her away and he would never have the chance to hurt her again.

He went on staring at the door and made up his mind. He knew what he had to do.

He had to let it happen.

.

"Come with me!"

Emily jumped, startled, and started to back away from him before she saw who he was, and then she just stared for a long moment, the tears welling up in her eyes, and reached out a small, shaking hand to rest it in his.

"You're safe now," Jarod told her. "We're together now. You're not alone anymore." He pulled her in for a quick hug before separating and heading for the door quickly, leading her after him.

They ran to the car and got inside. Down the road, Jarod could see the Sweeper heading for his car in the motel parking lot and he started the car, wasting no time leaving the diner behind.

It wasn't until they were out of town that he finally allowed himself to glance over at Emily again. She was brushing her tears away but more kept coming. "Hey!" he said.

She closed her eyes and sighed shakily. Looking at her properly, Jarod saw the tiredness and the bruises on her face – no more Empathic glamour to hide those – and felt anger take hold of him for a second. He pushed it away and returned his eyes to the road, instead.

"It's gonna be okay," he told her, and she said nothing back, just nodded mutely. He just hoped he was right.

.

Parker ran into the diner, gun drawn, then froze.

The only discernible emotion in Lee's eyes was anger, fury. Against the might of that, not even a speck of betrayal stood a chance of survival.

She glanced at the body on the floor, at the gleaming red blood. It was wrong, too thin, but Empaths, they were forever getting sick, right? She stared at her brother, not looking at anything because he was _dead_.

"He let her go!" Lee hissed. "He was compromised."

Parker heard the intonation in his voice, heard what he _wasn__'__t_ saying. Lee didn't think Bobby had been compromised; he'd never trusted him from the start, _he_ thought he'd been lying to them all! Working for the enemy, right under their noses.

The fool!

"Aw, Hell no!"

She didn't turn about to catch a glimpse of Broots's face, but frowned, something about Bobby's expression catching her eye. No, not his expression, his eyes. His right eye, to be exact.

She put her gun away and knelt down on the floor, reaching out a hand to turn his face, and that was when she saw it, the narrow band of red, just a sliver really, neatly cutting the blue of his iris from the black of his pupils.

"Everybody out – _now_!" She jumped to her feet and grabbed hold of the guy cowering by the counter and swept over to the door, pushing him outside after Lee and Broots, assuming they'd already given him some cover story about being with the FBI.

Lee didn't look happy at all. He glanced down at his watch, then back up to her face, sneering in amusement.

"What? What's wrong?" Broots was dull of questions, shaking properly now. Shit, Lee had just killed his _friend_! "Is there a bomb?"

Parker grinned, but it wasn't out of pleasure. She whipped around to face Broots, at last, reeling off coolly, "Just a precaution, Broots. That _thing_ in there, that thing you thought was your colleague – we all thought was part of the team – it's not."

"It?" Lee snickered, clearly amused.

Parker forced herself to meet his eyes without glaring. "Upgraded. Top of the line. Bling bling!" She grinned. "Makes sense now, doesn't it! Why he couldn't stop that bullet. Not a Reaper. Empath. Class Seven, I'd hazard a guess. Not so good on Field. Uncomfortably, painfully out of his depth around real, _living_ people. We should let him cool off."

Lee laughed derisively. "He's dead, Miss Parker! What's he gonna do?"

"Kill you!" she hissed with deadly conviction.

"His body is dead," Broots chose that moment to speak up, "but his upgrades are not. They still have the tiniest spark of life left in them, but they're fading. Fast."

Lee didn't seem to grasp the danger of any of what Broots was saying, because he just grinned.

.

"_Aw!_"

"What? What is it?" Jarod glanced around at Emily, for a second. He face was pale and she looked in pain, one hand pressed to her head, the other to the windshield. "Emily?"

"Oh God!"

"Are you gonna be sick?"

She gulped down a breath. "No. I think I'm gonna die, Jarod!"

Just the way she said it, the matter-of-factness of her voice, sent chills through him.

.

Parker's eyes strayed back to the diner door. "Fuck it!"

Broots tried to grab her arm but she shrugged away from him and yanked open the door, disappearing inside.

"She's mad, isn't she?" Lee asked. "Mad, like her mother was mad!"

Broots didn't bother replying to that. The guy wasn't worth it. His ignorance was astounding. Broots could still remember the case files Lyle had given him when he'd found out he was considering taking the Tower up on their offer of leaving Blue Cove and coming to work for them in their "central processing unit", the ultra-secret Tower branch. He still had no idea where that place was.

What those upgrades had done to those people, the way it had destroyed them from the inside out, their fundamental human structures, he never wanted to think about again. He didn't even _know_ how Lyle had got those files, but he'd just known he didn't _want_ to know. Sure, he wasn't some Empath, and everyone knew that Empaths were the only ones who survived the upgrading process successfully, but just the thought of working with those people, those people who would be, from the very first moment he met them, _doomed_ to die, was enough to turn him off any idea of ever going to work for the Tower.

Right now, he wanted to wipe that smug look off Lee's face and growl at him, "That _thing_ in there – that thing you _murdered_ – is not a thing! It was my _friend_! _He_ was my friend!" He resisted the temptation. Lee was too much of an idiot to understand something like that, it was obvious.

.

Jarod stared, horrified, at his sister, his heart beating madly, waiting for her to speak, to say _anything_, waiting for her to _look_ at him. He didn't want her to die.

Finally, she seemed to regain some semblance of awareness outside of herself and the pain taking hold of her, and gasped, "I think it's passing. I think I'm gonna be alright."

A tear ran down his face but he didn't bother to wipe it away, he just went on staring at her as though for dear life. That was always the way it happened, with the Centre. You thought you knew something, you though you'd gotten away, you were safe – but you weren't!

.

Parker walked over to her "brother's" dead body and knelt down well outside of the growing circle of blood messing up the diner floor. "My name is Melody Isabel Parker. I was born January 13th, 1960. My father's name was James Elroy Parker. My mother was Catherine Elaine Parker. I am fifty-one years old. I work for the Centre, out of the Blue Cove branch in Delaware, the United States of America. My mission objective is to recapture the fugitive Pretender known as Jarod, Red File A7649P. Today, you interfered in my mission. You aided and abetted the escape of a hostage I had taken to lure Jarod into a trap in the hopes of bringing him home. I am at a loss for why you would do this. I am the superior on this mission. Report!" She narrowed her eyes on the dead body's face. "I said, '_Report_'!"

Everything was silent.

She took something out of her coat pocket, something not much larger than her hand covered in a durable, shock-resistant polymer, and glanced down at the screen of the MU. A touch of her finger to the screen made it come alive and words appeared on the screen:

Negative, Melody Isabel Parker. Your mission is flawed. The company is incorrect. A7649P – _Jarod_ – is a human being, not a machine. A human being is not owned, it lives. It has a will. You will not find success by forcing Jarod to come back, only through gaining his co-operation. Your mission is flawed, Melody Isabel Parker. This unit is damaged. It would require maintenance for continued use, though we advise against this course of action. The unit is unstable, unsafe, and we calculate, too far damaged to be recovered. We recommend assigning another operative in its place. We recommend further discussion with your superiors as to the viability and projected successfulness of your mission objective with a view to rethinking and redefining the intended outcome. End of report.

She looked up from the screen, over to Lyle. "You're a human being," she said. As expected, she received no answer. The screen, when she looked down at it, was blank.

"You were supposed to be my brother!" she whispered, fighting very hard not to let her true emotions show on her face. She was just about to put the MU away when she saw something flash up on the screen. She stared at the words through shiny eyes.

I'm sorry, it said.

She blinked quickly, shoving the MU back into her coat pocket, and stood up. She had a job to do!

Just before she turned to leave, she laughed softly. "Successfulness! I thought you didn't know how to spell a big, complicated word like that." Then she turned and headed for the door.

The company would try to turn this thing around and make it out to be something fantastical and crazy improbable; they'd say it was just some high-Class Empath, and not her brother, but she already knew it was Lyle. If it had been anything else, its Empathic glamour would have worn off by now and it would have returned to its original form, but it hadn't. It hadn't because it was already _in_ its original form. It wasn't some piece of pricey, top secret African Tower tech, or its organic "component", it was a person. It had been a person. A person who'd been messed up by her twin brother's insane prototype upgrades!

Just thinking about it made her want to be sick. The Melody part of her honestly couldn't believe the ruthlessness and sheer evilness of the company she worked for, sometimes, but Miss Parker knew better. She believed it was true, she _knew_ it was true!

Anyone they wanted, they could have, with just a click of their fingers. The only one they couldn't truly have was Jarod, because he'd woken up, and he'd dared to stand up to them, he'd dared to fight back.

Lyle – Noah's upgrades, the small part of him that was still living, at least for a little while – were right. She was fighting for the wrong side. If she cared at all about humanity, about the goodness that could still come from her species, about the planet she called home, then she'd get it together; she'd switch sides. And she would find a way to _win_.

She didn't stop at the door to look back, she'd already made her choice. She knew now what she had to do. Whatever it took, no matter the cost, the future was worth it! Without that, she had nothing, her _people_ had nothing. Life, had nothing.

Somebody had to fight for the future, and if they went down in the process, if they died fighting, then they had died an admirable death; they had lived a worthwhile life, while it lasted. They had been a good person, a _proper_ human.

I _will_ fight, she promised herself silently. I will _not_ give up!

That was three times she had been made a soldier, three times she'd been forced to take on the role out of the simple, unadulterated need to survive. She guessed that meant it was just meant to be, it was her destiny. Third time was always the charm.

.

"This is it, then?"

They'd forecast a storm that morning, on the news, and from where she was standing, the sky looked ready to make good on its promise. Long red hair whipped into her face, but she ignored the urge to drag it back into a ponytail and some semblance of order. Brushing it from her face, she thought back to earlier that morning, when she'd been considering plaiting it, and supposed she should have set her alarm earlier, _made_ the time.

Suppressing a sigh, she turned to glance at her colleague. He wasn't looking at her, but out there, at the desert. It all looked boring to her. Boring, and impossibly barren, lifeless. "Dr. Bowman."

"Agent Brandon," he returned calmly.

She frowned. Sometimes, she had the very inexplicable feeling that this guy was nuts, but the truth was, he was also brilliant. And brilliance, in this world, seemed to directly afford a measure of flexibility over the definition of insane.

She'd been told her brothers were brilliant too, but as to insane, she had no idea. She'd never met them.

"_Will_ it work?"

"Emily."

She met his eyes, ignoring the unsettling feeling that followed. She was an FBI Agent, she was the one with the gun, whilst the guy may very well have given her the creeps, no matter how many times she'd been through this before, just looking at him, the fact was, she _could_ protect herself. She had no reason to think he could hurt her in any way possible. And beside that fact, he wasn't legally insane. He wouldn't bloody dare. "Robert," she replied.

He smiled. "What do you think?"

_Yep!_ Right about now, _she_ wished she could hurt him, just for that! No, she didn't intend on killing him, she was just sick to death of how he always found some way to dodge answering her questions, and nine times out of ten, by asking her some _ridiculous_ question back. He might as well have been asking her whether she liked chocolate or strawberry milkshake! He had to be nuts! Notwithstanding the fact that he already _knew_ she was allergic to strawberries, if the shop only stocked one kind, and that one kind wasn't chocolate, _why_ the Hell would he ask such a stupid question? He already knew she couldn't have given a damn what she, in any of her far flung fantasies, _wanted_, she only cared about what the science said. She wasn't paid to play _make __believe_ with a lunatic.

She sighed wearily, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just _once_, Robert, I would like you to – I'm _begging_ you to – cut the crap and just answer the damn question!"

He seemed untroubled by her sudden bout of anger, but merely smiled once more. "Look around you, Agent Brandon. What do you see?"

She scowled. She should have known it. Nuts! "A desert!" she snapped. "I see a desert!" A sharp, dark laugh rose in her throat. "Nothing new there!"

"You asked if it would work, and my answer to you is: Have another look."

Begrudgingly, she looked around _one_ more time. Arguing only made it worse – that, _she_ knew! "Wow! _More_ desert!"

"Isn't it a wonderful day?"

Just then, she wanted to _kill_ him! "No, it's-!" Her eyes shot up to the sky, and saw what was different. It was clear and blue with not a single cloud in sight. Even the breeze that had ruffled her hair was gone. Her wedding ring felt warm on her hand.

"My answer to you is: Why, my dear, it already has!"

She dropped her eyes from the sky, dreading turning around and finding the facility behind her gone, vanished into thin air. She'd always knew the possibility existed – just _had_ to exist – she just hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Carefully suppressing her anger and the fear welling deep inside her, she let her hand drop from her face. There was no need to brush her hair out of her eyes any longer; it was completely wind still.

The lunatic had said they were just running a trial. When she'd got into her car that morning and backed out of her drive before the sun had even risen, she'd fully envisioned _another_ failed attempt, another wasted day! She hadn't even had the chance to tell Lee she loved him in any way that mattered. He'd still been sleeping when she'd left for work. She supposed there wasn't much chance of that now.

She fought to calm her heartbeat, to restore order to her breathing. "You're insane!" she said. "Good work, doctor. Now begins the _real_ work."

They had successfully crossed worlds. The answer to what they needed was within sight. They just had to go out and find it.

Before time ran out.

"I hope you like walking, because you're right, there's not much out here in the way of any signs of humanity, just a _whole_ lot of desert! Still, it's a nice day for it, wouldn't you say?"

"Don't make me shoot you!"

"I'm sorry, come again."

She forced a smile onto her face. "Not a whole lot but desert, but it's kinda nice, isn't it? Peaceful. A little bit scenic, even. It makes a change from the usual mishmash of _way_, way too much drop-dead boring paperwork, bad coffee and mad car chases."

"Car chases?" He stared at her incredulously.

"Yeah, ah, I'm a Federal Agent, Dr. Bowman. I can chase people in cars."

"Speeding is against the law, Agent Brandon!" Obviously, he took a dim view of such things. Wow, she never would have guessed.

"I _work_ for the law, Robert! _Face __it!_"

He considered her words for a moment, seeming to lose focus on her eyes but not her face. "I suppose you're right," he replied dully.

"Back a couple of years ago, a friend and I narrowly avoided death as a result of a car accident. We don't talk anymore. I can't remember how long it's been, exactly, just that it seems like forever. I think I can safely say I know a little something about the dangers of crazy antics whilst moving at high speeds."

He looked away from her, and added quietly, "I know. I read your file."

"You what?" She almost choked, blinking a couple of time. "I'm sorry – you _read_ my file, Dr. Bowman? _My_ file! How the Hell would you get your hands on _my __file?_" she growled.

"Yeh. That was probably going outside of protocol, but, I mean, you'd do anything for the job, right? To see it succeed the way it should, the way you can just _see_ it succeeding. Well, so would I, Agent Brandon. It was harmless... Nobody got hurt. Nobody knows. It's just us two. You think you could m-maybe... pretend you never heard me say that?"

She laughed. "_Pretend?_"

"Yeah."

* * *

><p><strong><span>Somebody<span> was watching too much _Fringe_. Yeah, that's me. Ugh!**

**Have a great day!**


End file.
